


Jaquemart IV - Katabasis

by alanharnum



Series: Jaquemart [4]
Category: Shoujo Kakumei Utena | Revolutionary Girl Utena
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 15:19:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13169673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alanharnum/pseuds/alanharnum





	Jaquemart IV - Katabasis

JAQUEMART  
by  
Alan Harnum

Utena and its characters belongs to Be-PaPas, Chiho Saito,  
Shogakukan, Shokaku Iinkai and TV Tokyo.

This copy of the story is from my Archive of Our Own page at http://archiveofourown.org/users/alanharnum/pseuds/alanharnum.

 

IV. Katabasis

The taste of love is sweet  
When hearts like ours meet  
I fell for you like a child  
Oh, but the fire was wild  
I fell into a burning ring of fire  
Went down, down, down  
And the flames went higher  
And it burns, burns, burns  
\--Johnny Cash, "Ring of Fire"

* * *

The bells were impatient. He could feel the inevitable imminence  
of their ringing, and their desire to ring. The purpose of bells  
was to ring. The purpose of a bell-ringer was to ring them.

But only when it was time.

Would he know when it was time?

He had always known before, and had no reason to think that  
it would be different in the future.

When it was time, the bells would be funereal.

But only when it was time.

He would wait. There was no pain in waiting.

* * *

His name was Salvadore, and he was a balding, red-cheeked, round-  
bodied, slope-shouldered, mustachioed man in his fifties whose  
eyes were as full of warmth and humanity as those of a dead fish.

He trotted into Anthy's cell on Leo's heels like a fat dog  
loyally following its master, put his little leather case down  
on the table, folded his hands across his pudgy stomach, and  
twiddled his thumbs while Leo approached Anthy. He came to stand  
right at the edge of the damp, gold-flaked circle surrounding her  
chair.

"I found out what happened to the man I had following your  
apprentice," he said quietly, a hard note in his voice as he  
looked coldly down at her. "She sent him back to us. What was  
left of him. With a red rose in his mouth." He wiped away the  
wisps of white hair clinging to his sweaty forehead; even with  
his dark complexion, it was impossible not to notice his pallor.  
"This is the last chance before I will have Salvadore begin his  
work. Will you repent of your sins?"

Anthy stared neutrally back at him, mouth a flat line. "I  
am done with penance and guilt," she answered quietly. The  
clotted wound upon her cheek from the glass sliver throbbed  
dully, painfully.

For a moment, Leo's eyes were pained as he looked at her.  
He took a handkerchief from his breast pocket and wiped his  
forehead again. "Answer the questions, then," he said, folding  
the handkerchief and putting it away. "Then you shall at least  
leave this life of flesh without pain."

"Before I go to the infinite pain of Hell, as dictated by  
your all-loving God?" She smiled, and shook her head, almost  
thought she saw him flinch. "No, Leo. I have already answered  
them. My brother looks over your shoulder; my familiar is with  
my 'apprentice'; my 'apprentice' is with my familiar."

Salvadore was looking away from the confrontation, casting  
his glance around the room as though seeking something,  
displaying no apparent interest in the outcome of the  
proceedings. Leo glanced back at him, then turned back to Anthy.

"So be it," he said. He sounded vaguely regretful.  
"Flora--"

"That's the first time you've called me that since we met  
again, you know," Anthy said softly. "And it's not even my name  
any longer."

He stared at her in silence, eyes dark, face pallid.  
Salvadore was still looking around the room, now frowning  
slightly. 

"Se�or Cano," he finally said in Spanish, "is there an  
electrical socket in this room?"

Leo turned his head to talk to the chubby man. "There is  
one behind the leg of that table in the corner."

Salvadore walked over and knelt down to check. "So there  
is," he confirmed matter-of-factly. "I should have thought to  
look there. I am going to need an extension cord." He quietly  
left the room.

"Do you like to watch him work, Leo?"

Leo shook his head. "No. But I do not hate it, either."  
He folded his hands, gently tracing his fingers over the ring he  
wore. "You are going to tell me where El Diablo is, and then I  
am going to kill him." He stated it as a given, with complete  
belief, but he did not have the voice of a fanatic.

Anthy realized, for the first time, that he really did  
believe he was doing right, and felt a terrible pity for him. 

"If I told you where he was, would you swear to me to leave  
my familiar and the one you call my apprentice out of this? To  
never move against them? To never harm them?" she asked.

He was silent for a moment, then shook his head again. "No.  
I will not swear to an oath I cannot keep."

"You are honest, then. Better than others I have known."

"'Others'?" He looked thoughtful for a moment, then,  
softly, mirthlessly, laughed. "Of course; you are very, very  
old, after all." He steepled his fingers and stepped away from  
her. "They were fools and brutes. So many died who did not have  
to; they may have been guilty of many sins, but true witches...  
there are not so many of them. I do not concern myself with  
foolish hedonists dancing naked at the full moon; such nonsense,  
though sinful and heretical, is relatively harmless compared to  
true witchery." He started, as though realizing he was saying  
far more than he wanted to, than frowned and turned away from  
her.

"Leo?"

He did not answer her entreaties, and only looked back once  
Salvadore had returned with the extension cord. Even then, he  
said nothing, and merely watched as it began.

* * *

"No answer?" Nanami asked, not even looking back.

"No." Utena hung up the phone, yawned, then lay down on her  
bed, put her hands behind head and stared up at the ceiling. "I  
suppose she might just not be answering the phone, but..."

"I'm sure that's it," Nanami said, turning now from the  
frost-gilded picture window and the sight of the dropping snow to  
look at Utena. "You shouldn't worry yourself about it. Himemiya  
didn't want to come along, did she? So, why should you worry  
about her?"

Utena's eyes traced a crack that forked in arboreal branches  
across the ceiling plaster, and she remained silent.

"It's past midnight." Nanami's voice was soft and sleepy.  
Utena heard the frame of the other woman's bed squeak softly as  
she sat down on it. "I've had a long day, and you've had a  
longer one. We should get some sleep."

Utena nodded, then rolled over onto her stomach and reached  
for the phone on the table between the beds. "I'm going to call  
Saionji."

Nanami sighed, exasperated, and flopped back down onto the  
bed with her arm covering her eyes. "Fine. Do whatever you  
want, but do it quickly, so I can turn off the lights and get  
some sleep."

Hand poised over the numeric pad of the phone, Utena paused.  
"What? I know, he's probably asleep, but I'm worried. Besides,"  
she added after a moment, "I want to know how Wakaba's doing. I  
should have called him earlier, but... well, it's been a busy  
day." She glanced down at the piece of paper with Saionji's home  
and cell-phone numbers on it. "You think I'm just being  
paranoid, or something? I mean, maybe she's asleep... Anthy can  
sleep really solidly if she's tired, and the phone might not wake  
her up."

"Or maybe she's using her magical witch powers to screen her  
calls," Nanami growled, turning over on the bed so that her back  
was to Utena. "I don't even care, Utena. I'm exhausted. I  
don't even see how you're still awake."

"I don't really see how either," Utena admitted. "I didn't  
even sleep on the flight over here."

"Utena, just call him and let me go to sleep," Nanami  
murmured. "Then you get into your pyjamas and go to sleep too.  
We've got to be up early tomorrow."

"Well, I don't, really," Utena said. The phone had been off  
the hook long enough to begin buzzing imploringly, and Utena  
pressed down the button to return it to the regular dial tone.  
"I'm not going into Ohtori like the rest of you are."

"So what are you going to do all day while we're scouting  
Ohtori?"

"I don't know." Sit around the room and study the crack  
from every angle, to try and figure out for certain if it _was_  
the same crack. She knew it was the same hotel, but lots of  
rooms probably had cracks in the ceiling. It wasn't surprising  
they'd ended up in the same place; pleasant and not too pricey, it  
was right on the outskirts of Houou's suburbs. The perfect spot  
to serve as a base of operations for a counter-revolution. Or to  
stop when you and a friend spent a lot more time at the carnival  
in the neighbouring town than you expected, and it was very late,  
and the car's engine was making funny noises, and he said he was  
very tired, a few too many rides, a little too much to eat,  
didn't trust his driving skills, worried about falling asleep at  
the wheel and, no, don't be silly, he could afford one night, he  
only worried about the appropriateness of it, the chairman and a  
young female student...

How she'd blushed at that. Oh, God, why hadn't she been  
able to see what he _was_? 

"Utena? Utena?"

The phone was buzzing again. Utena numbly pressed the  
button down once more, and dialed Saionji's home number. No  
answer. He was probably at the hospital with Wakaba. She  
hesitated, then dialed the cell-phone number. Two rings, and  
then the click of a machine answering.

//"We're sorry, but the subscriber you're calling is  
currently unavail--"//

She hung up. He must have his cell-phone turned off.  
Unsurprising, if he was at the hospital. Nothing more she could  
do now. She'd try Anthy again in the morning, and Saionji again  
if she didn't get her.

"No luck?" Nanami asked sleepily. She'd crawled under the  
covers, still with her back to Utena, and was half-curled into a  
sleepy ball with her blond hair falling upon the piled pillows in  
waves.

"Nope." Utena got off the bed and walked to the dresser,  
confirming that Chu-Chu was still--worryingly--asleep in the  
little box-bed she'd made for him out of a tissue container.  
"Hmm... you know, I didn't pack them."

"Whm?" Nanami muttered, shifting slightly beneath the  
covers.

"My pyjamas. I remember, I thought about packing them, but  
then decided I needed room in my bag for other things." She  
chuckled derisively. "I didn't exactly pack slowly and  
carefully."

"Mmm," Nanami replied.

"Oh well; guess I'll just sleep in the nude."

"What?" Nanami sprang up in bed, half-tossing the covers  
off onto the floor. "That's utterly indecent."

Utena snickered. "So you were faking being half-asleep,  
were you?" She began to unbutton her shirt; Nanami clamped one  
hand over her eyes and pulled the covers back over herself with  
the other. "Oh, relax; I was going to keep my underwear on  
anyway. Honestly, it's not like I've got anything you haven't  
seen in the mirror your whole life."

"I have an extra nightgown. You can wear that."

"I don't like nightgowns, and, besides, I don't think it  
would fit me."

"I have one that's loose on me that I brought."

"Unsurprising, given that you brought three suitcases."

"What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing, in theory, but I'll remind you that I was the one  
who carried your extra one in from the car. What did you pack in  
there, bowling balls?"

"Hmph. Look, are you going to wear it or not?"

"I'll pass. Thanks anyway."

"You've got no modesty at all." 

Utena dropped her shirt to the floor, followed it moments  
later with her slacks, then went into the bathroom to wash up  
before bed. When she got back out, Nanami's position hadn't  
changed.

"Turn out the lights, Utena."

After shutting off the overhead light, Utena got into bed  
and turned off the bedside lamp. Only ambient light from the  
outside, where the snow still fell lightly beyond the window-  
glass, prevented the room from falling into total darkness.

"Good night, Nanami. Pleasant dreams."

"Good night, Utena. Sleep well."

For perhaps a minute, the room was silent. Utena kept her  
eyes open and watched the snow falling beyond the window. It had  
been falling when they arrived at Houou's one small airport, had  
fallen as they'd driven in the rental car (Nanami had, of course,  
insisted on driving) to the hotel, and was falling still. If it  
kept up throughout the night, Houou would have a fresh layer of  
snow to replace the almost-melted cover that had been on the  
ground when they arrived.

Snow in Sapporo was lovely. She and Anthy had spent quite a  
few nights sitting on the couch together, with coffee or tea or  
cocoa and marshmallows, watching the fat flakes drift down  
through the hazy night outside like angels falling to earth.

*"Utena, do you ever imagine that every flake of snow that  
falls is the soul of someone who died?"*

*"Hmm. No. Can't say that I ever do."*

*"All the dead, of all times, of all worlds, falling,  
falling, falling..."*

*She reaches out and takes Anthy's hand. "You say funny  
things whenever we watch the snow falling."*

*"I'm sorry."*

*"Don't be. It was... beautiful, in a way."*

"Nanami?"

Silence, the utter quietude of old night.

She tried again, a little louder, surprised at her own  
tremulous voice. "Nanami, are you still awake?"

"...I am now."

"Oh. Sorry."

Nanami's voice was muffled, exhausted and exasperated.  
"What do you want, Utena?"

"Nothing. Nothing. It's just that Anthy and I always used  
to talk every night before we went to sleep. Last night was the  
first time I've ever gone to bed without doing that in over seven  
years. Tonight... I don't know."

"Perhaps you just miss that other voice from the darkness."

"Yes. I think that's it."

"It must be a comforting thing, that. To know even in the  
night, if you cry out, someone else will answer." Nanami's voice  
was wistfully envious.

Utena stared up at the ceiling. The crack was still dimly  
visible in the wash of light from outside, a darker darkness, a  
shadow upon shadows.

"This brings back some memories, doesn't it, Nanami?" she  
asked after a moment. "Of when you came to stay in the tower,  
right before everything fell apart."

The silence radiated back to her from Nanami was almost  
palpable, chilly as though the winter were reaching through the  
walls to cup the room in cold embrace.

"Did I say something wrong?"

Suddenly, startlingly, Nanami laughed, bitter as frost on  
window-panes, and Utena shivered to hear the sound. When that  
mirthless, pain-laden laughter finally stopped, silence fell  
again like a hammer. Utena lay in the darkness, saying and  
thinking nothing.

"Utena, I _saw_ them."

"W-what?" Yet she knew what was coming, surely as a falling  
woman knows the earth below shall rise to meet her.

"Himemiya and her brother. I know... what they did  
together. I saw them."

"You did, then?" Utena whispered quietly, less to Nanami  
than to the night. "You did, then. I guess you weren't talking  
about Touga after all. I guess I always knew."

"Well, I gave you enough hin-- 'talking about Touga after  
all'?"

"In your apartment." Utena found it hard to draw breath  
enough to speak. The ceiling crack seemed an impossibly black  
thing, like the first intrusions of some darker, higher plane  
upon this one. "'To your own sister. How could you? Bastard;  
your own sister.' I... I always knew. You were so angry the  
next morning, at breakfast, and... I put it all together  
afterwards, I think, and then forgot about it. Didn't want to  
think about it. Because I should have understood, and then,  
then... things might have been different."

"I think things were too far gone by then," Nanami murmured.  
She no longer sounded sleepy at all. "Our paths were set."

"No," Utena whispered in answer, thinking of highways  
running to eternity and ocean scents, the whisper of fan blades,  
the heat of bodies and summer... "No, it wasn't quite too late.  
If I'd... if I'd only not been so blind."

She rolled over onto her side, looking towards the dim,  
huddled shape of Nanami lying in her bed. "Although I'm... kind  
of glad. To know that Touga didn't actually..."

"Oh, he did," Nanami said shortly. "But it's none of your  
business what he did. Don't be too shocked; it wasn't... wasn't  
the kind of thing that Himemiya and her... but it's none of your  
business." 

For a moment, Utena couldn't even speak. Finally, she  
managed, almost stuttering, to say: "Then why are you telling  
me about it?"

Nanami shifted, turned to face Utena. Her eyes gleamed  
dimly with the residual light from outside, but they rest of her  
was lost in shadow. "I don't even know."

"Was that what happened when Akio showed you the ends of the  
world?"

"...what?"

"When I was telling you about the duel called Revolution,  
Shiori said that Akio showed you all the ends of the world... did  
whatever happened with Touga happen there?"

"...I said it's none of your business."

"Is that a yes or a no?"

There was a gleam of tears in Nanami's eyes. "Yes," she  
whispered at last. "That was where it happened... in the back of  
the car... on the road to the ends of the world..."

They stared at each other in silence for a moment, and then  
Utena cleared her throat, and said, "Akio made her do all that,  
you know. It wasn't--"

The sharp laugh that burst from Nanami's lips like a wounded  
dove severed her mid-sentence. "Oh, Utena, you don't really  
believe that, do you? Have you ever seen her, I mean, really  
_seen_ her? With her glasses off, and her hair down, completely  
nude... there was _light_, Utena, there was light everywhere. I  
couldn't even look directly at her. She was..." Nanami's voice  
trailed off uncomfortably. 

"What?"

The bedsprings squeaked as Nanami moved again to look up at  
the ceiling, further twisting the covers around herself into a  
quasi-cocoon. "She was..." Beautiful, Utena thought vaguely, so  
beautiful that it almost sundered your mind just to look at her  
when she was like that, you felt as though you were gazing at the  
same time into the highest heaven and the deepest hell, as though  
your heart were going to crack and fall into a million pieces,  
you wanted to fall down on your knees and worship her... "...like  
a goddess. She was so bright, Utena... you couldn't understand  
unless you'd seen the kind of thing that I did."

"I saw," Utena admitted, finally, in the darkness. There  
were tears in her voice. "I saw them too. Right before the  
end..."

"Why didn't you do anything, then?"

Utena let out a single, choked sob that rose up from deep  
within her like a swimmer surfacing, from the scar upon her body  
from Anthy's sword and the wound upon her heart from Akio's  
touch.

"What was I supposed to do?" she whispered, and fell into  
silence. She dried what few tears had fallen with the edge of  
her pillowcase, then rolled over onto her other side, facing  
away from Nanami.

"You understand, then," Nanami said quietly, so gently there  
was a kind of cruelty in it, as though she'd already done so much  
hurt there was no need to do more. "Do you think anyone, even  
Akio, could really make her do anything that she didn't want to?"

Utena didn't answer.

"Was that enough conversation to let you go to sleep,  
Utena?"

"Yes," Utena replied. "Quite enough."

"Good night, then."

"Good night."

In her mind's eyes, Utena pictured herself rolling over  
again, reaching out across the gap between the beds with her  
hand, pictured Nanami doing the same. The gap was not so large.  
Large enough, though--large enough. Neither of them moved.

Tired though she was, it took her a long time to fall  
asleep, and, when she did, the dreams were very bad, albeit  
unremembered.

* * *

Anthy had reconciled herself even before it began to the torments  
she would undergo. Even without her power, she believed she  
could endure them, hold out long enough, die without giving Leo  
any thread that he could follow to Utena.

Enduring pain, however, was not the same as not feeling it.

Salvadore was very good at what he did, and astonishingly  
varied in his technique. After so long a time as the Rose Bride,  
she had thought she knew every kind of pain there was, but he  
showed her a few she didn't.

So many different kinds. Pain that cut, pain that bruised,  
pain that broke, pain that burned, pain that shocked...

And, all the while, Leo stood calmly by, and asked the  
questions, over and over again, promising each time that if she  
answered, the pain would end... hard to hear his voice, though,  
over the screaming (was that her? it didn't sound like her),  
over the whirring of the tiny needle-sharp drill he used at  
several points (that was why he'd needed the extension cord, for  
that and for the bare-ended wires he plugged in and used to send  
convulsive, heart-throttling bursts of electricity through her  
body), but she held out, she had to hold out, had felt worse pain  
than this before, she told herself that each time she cried  
out...

But there had always been the power, then, a funnel for the  
agonies both mental and physical that were inflicted upon her,  
that she inflicted upon herself. Several times, in desperation,  
she lost sight of where she was, and tried to use her power to  
make the pain go away, but it only made it worse... if only  
Salvadore would be careless for just a moment, and break the  
circle of gold and holy water (she guessed it was holy water, it  
could be any of a half-hundred other things... and even then,  
there might be other elements in the inadvertent binding circle  
Leo had somehow managed to create beyond cold-forged iron and a  
circle of gold and holy water... had he hit upon it by chance, or  
somehow had the information supplied by Akio? How long had Akio  
been planning this, whatever it was, and... red roses in the  
mouth, oh, why hadn't she seen, why hadn't she realized the  
moment he said it?) that kept her pinned and helpless.

Suddenly, she realized that there was no new pain, that it  
had stopped some time ago, and that she was alone again, but she  
still hurt so much that she hadn't realized it. She didn't even  
recall them leaving. They'd be back... this was only the  
beginning.

If she hadn't known that it wouldn't work, she would have  
forced her power against the binding until the pain killed her.  
But she'd pass out before that happened. Maybe... maybe that  
would weaken her enough, though, Salvadore wouldn't realize how  
weak she was when he began again, and then--

No. This... this was what Akio intended. He gave them into  
Leo's hands, then had his Knight kill the man following Utena...  
He wanted her dead and Utena alive, of _course_ he didn't want  
Leo coming to Ohtori, he expected her to die before she gave the  
information, for Utena's sake... or did he, she couldn't think,  
she couldn't begin to unravel his web, the pain was so bad...

She tried to open her eyes, and managed a bare slit on one.  
The other was swollen entirely shut (Salvadore used his hands as  
well as more complex tools), and felt as though it were a  
carrying a baseball on the lid. Her head was bowed against her  
chest, and raising it would have been an impossibility. A lot of  
her blood was on the concrete floor, and she saw a few of her  
teeth (he'd extracted them as expertly as a dentist, but without  
anaesthetic) scattered amidst the red puddles soaking the  
concrete.

The effort of keeping her eye open became too much; she  
closed it again, and let her head sink down completely. Leo's  
face swam before her, young, old, becoming other faces: a  
Chinese prince with soft dark eyes in a rugged young face, a  
thin-lipped young Weimar officer with a kindly expression, too  
many others to number, and she could remember none of their  
names... but they had all called her the same thing at the end,  
after their noble (but not noble enough) hearts had failed and  
Akio raised his hand against them, leaving their minds in ruins  
and their souls in ashes...

*Witch, witch, accursed witch...*

And, each time, he wouldn't _kill_ them, wouldn't give them  
that mercy, and so she... no other choice but to take their agony  
from them and bear it herself.

It would never end, she realized suddenly, and a light went  
out in her heart. Even if she escaped this time, her past was  
too great a monster to be left behind. Ever since she'd escaped  
Akio, it had hung over her head like a million swords suspended  
by hairs; Leo was only the first to drop.

Didn't she deserve this, in a way?

Hadn't she brought all those fine young men and women low?

No end to it.

In her despair, she began to weep, though it hurt to do so.  
She could not stop even as the door opened again, and, oh, could  
it be time to begin again already?

"Agua."

Mathias.

The cool edge of a metal cup brushed her lips, and she  
opened them automatically. Far more water spilled on her than  
got down her throat, and it was a painful effort to swallow,  
but swallow she did, and it was sweeter than anything had any  
right to be when she was in such pain.

"Please tell grandfather what he wants to know," he pleaded  
in Spanish. He sounded as though he had been crying. "Then it  
will stop."

"Here again without his permission?" she asked quietly,  
voice transformed into a half-incoherent mumble by her swollen  
lips.

"What language are you speaking? It is not Japanese, I do  
not think..." 

What language was she speaking? She didn't even know. It  
took conscious effort to remember her Spanish. "It doesn't  
matter. Thank you for the water."

"If I could," he said, half-agonized, "I would set you free.  
I hate this. I hate what he does. But... it says we must not  
suffer witches to live. But it also says that whatever we do,  
even to the least among us, we do also to Christ. And to honour  
our parents, and he has been like a father to me... but my real  
mother was a witch, like you... I do not know what to do..."

He really was crying now. Anthy felt, suddenly and  
painfully, the desire to reach out and stroke his hair. But  
even if her wrists had not been bounden, she could not have  
done so. At least half her fingers were broken, probably more.

"I wish my mother had sacrificed me to the devil, as  
grandfather tells me she surely intended," he said fiercely.  
"Then my soul would have flown straight to Purgatory, and I would  
not have to live like this. Or better if I had never been born  
at all--no, why do I say these sinful things? Oh, Father,  
forgive me, Christ, forgive me, Lady Mary, forgive me--"

"Mathias!" she said sharply, commandingly. She forced her  
one good eye open a crack again, and tried to bring his young,  
tear-stained face into focus. "You can set me free," she said,  
softening her voice. "You can. It is within you. You know  
that."

"I shouldn't. I can't. I don't know how." He put his head  
into his hands and sank down to his knees, seemingly uncaring of  
the blood upon the floor. "Oh, Lord, oh, Mary, tell me what to  
do. Show me what is right," he moaned. Then, a moment later.  
"Please, Lord, won't you answer me? Can't you hear me? Speak to  
me, like you spoke to Moses from the burning bush, to Paul on his  
way to Damascus. I don't know what to do."

"I was thirsty," she said softly, "and you gave me drink...  
I was in prison, and you came to me." She knew the words well  
enough to use them to manipulate this boy... she did not like  
doing it, but...

"What you have done to the least of my brethren, you have  
done also to me," he murmured. He drew a deep breath and stood  
up, wiping the tears away from his eyes. "I do not have the  
keys to your manacles."

"The circle," she murmured, hope lighting in her like a  
small bright candle. "If you break it, I can--"

The door opened. The candle went out.

"Mathias," Leo said tonelessly, from where he stood in the  
doorway. His cold black eyes raked over them both. "Are you to  
become the one your namesake replaced, then?"

Mathias turned, fear and remorse instantly replacing his  
conviction. "No, grandf--"

Leo's hand snapped out and struck him a hard blow across the  
face. Mathias stumbled, and nearly fell. "Get out of here," the  
old man hissed. "You are confined to your room. Do _not_ leave  
it. Must I post a guard over you to make sure you obey me?"

"Grandf--"

"Get out! We shall speak of this later."

Mathias hurried from the cell, not even giving Anthy a  
backward glance. Leo turned his ashen gaze upon her, and her  
heart quailed at the hate in it.

"You will _not_ lead even one more young, foolish man even a  
step astray, bruja," he snarled. "I swear that by God and Christ  
and the Holy Ghost and Mary the Virgin and all the saints.  
Questioning be damned, I should kill you now for doing that to  
him."

"He reminds me of you," Anthy mumbled. "When you were  
younger, of course." 

"He reminds me of myself as well," Leo said coldly. "And  
that is why I will keep him out of your hands."

"Will you kill me now, then?" she asked quietly. "Will you  
bring this to an end?"

"We will come for you again in the morning," he said,  
turning away from her and flicking off the single bulb that  
illuminated the windowless room. When he left and closed the  
door, the room was plunged into utter darkness.

Anthy sat in that darkness, alone with her agony. Somehow,  
even with so much pain, even with the cramped immobile position  
she was in, she eventually managed to fall into sleep.

* * *

From a chair near the room's one big window, Utena watched the  
rental car carrying Nanami, Juri and Shiori pull away down the  
highway, heading out of the suburbs and into the city proper--  
aimed, like the leading point of a sword, at Ohtori and Akio.

When they were out of sight, she got up and drew the  
curtains closed. The winter sun, painfully bright, seemed to  
have no intention beyond stabbing into the room, casting away all  
shadows, and forcing her to walk around with her eyes half-  
closed. With the curtains drawn, things in the room were much  
more bearable.

She hadn't been able to reach Anthy or Saionji before  
breakfast, and was now beginning to really worry. The fact that  
she couldn't _do_ anything tempered that fact a little; it wasn't  
as though she could hop on the next plane back to Sapporo just to  
check if Anthy wasn't answering the phone.

Over breakfast, they'd come up with cover stories: Nanami  
was paying a surprise visit to her brother (conversation had  
elicited the grudging fact from her that this wasn't an  
implausible proposition, given past events), and Juri and Shiori  
were in town to visit Shiori's mother (the look Shiori had given  
Juri when she made the suggestion implied that this was an  
extremely implausible proposition). That they happened to be in  
town at the same time was mere coincidence, as was the fact that  
they came back to Ohtori to "visit".

Utena knew it wouldn't hold up long if Akio actually got  
wind of their presence on-campus, of course, but it was the best  
they had, and they had to scout Ohtori. 

She checked on Chu-Chu (still asleep; something more to  
worry about that she could do nothing to change), then sat down  
on the bed and looked up at the crack.

"It isn't the same room," she said firmly. The nagging  
feeling that she'd forgotten something tugged at the corners of  
her mind. It had been bothering her since breakfast, like a word  
right at the tip of her tongue.

It couldn't be the same crack. And even it was, so what?  
Coincidences happened. It meant nothing whether it was the same  
crack or not.

She lay down on her back and closed her eyes. "Great," she  
muttered. "Five minutes, and I'm already bored." She yawned.  
"Tired, too."

Awful dreams last night; she'd woken up in bathed in cold  
sweat three, perhaps four times. But terrible as they'd left her  
feeling, she couldn't remember (cracks) anything (the crack in  
the ceiling opening) at (laughing darkness pouring down) all (an  
emotionless mechanical voice shouting that "it" had escaped  
again).

She gasped and opened her eyes, having drifted off for a  
few brief seconds before startling herself awake. The room  
seemed very dark and cold. Strangely agitated, she turned on  
the bedside lamp, then hurried over and half-opened one curtain  
in order to let some sun into the room.

In the bathroom, she splashed cold water on her face,  
combed an errant tangle out of her hair, inspected her teeth for  
any stray bits of continental breakfast (God, room service was  
expensive--fortunately, Nanami was paying), clipped her nails and  
examined the tender bruise on her cheek. She couldn't tell if it  
was still swelling, or beginning to go down.

By the time she got out, it had been almost fifteen minutes  
since she'd said goodbye to the others. If this kept up, she'd  
be crazy before lunchtime.

"Screw it," she said finally, going to the door and slipping  
on her shoes. "Did we ever say 'Don't leave the hotel room,  
Utena?' As long as I don't go walking through Ohtori's front  
gates, things will be fine." She looked back as she left the  
room. "Hey, Chu-Chu, sleep well."

She rode the elevator (the so familiar elevator; riding five  
floors up with him, alone, had been almost unbearably tense, the  
claustrophobia of it, the closeness...) down to the ground floor  
(the plants in the lobby had been changed), then went into the  
lounge, ordered tea, and seated herself in a pleasant little nook  
semi-detached from the rest of the lounge, with a newspaper  
provided for guests.

Winter was the off-season for tourists in Houou, and there  
were less than half-dozen other guests in the big lounge full of  
leather-backed chairs and oak tables. The nook she sat in was an  
irregular pentagon, one side open to provide entrance and exit,  
and every other wall dominated by high smoked-glass windows that  
let in enough winter sunlight to read by without it being too  
bright.

On the third page, a sidebar held a short article about the  
death at Ohtori. Little more information than what she'd read in  
the paper in Sapporo. Funny; she would have expected it to be  
bigger news here. 

A boy was dead, and Tsuwabuki Mitsuru had killed him. She  
remembered Mitsuru as a nice boy, good at heart, albeit a little  
strange and excessive in his attempts to become Nanami's "big  
brother". He'd asked her advice on how to become an adult, and--

And then he'd come back soon after as one of Mikage's  
twisted Black Rose Duellists. What terrible game was Akio  
playing now?

She sipped the sweet green tea, and wondered vaguely what  
would happen if she walked into Akio's office. Would he be  
surprised? Surprised enough that she could run him through  
before he even said a word? 

Could she do that, even? Kill him in absolutely cold blood,  
without giving him any chance to defend himself? Was that the  
kind of thing a prince did?

Not any prince she'd ever read about. Then again, wasn't  
acting like a prince--believing that everyone around her was as  
pure and noble at heart as she believed herself to be--why things  
ended up the way they did?

If she'd only been a little less trusting...

Well, you learned from your mistakes.

"No answer from the room? How unfortunate."

That voice... no. It couldn't be.

She looked over the top of the newspaper. It was.

The nook had an unobstructed line of sight to the front  
desk, which allowed her to see Kiryuu Touga leaning his elbows on  
the counter of the reception desk to talk to the woman behind it.  
Who, though old enough to be his mother, was visibly blushing.

Utena stared. He looked almost exactly the same as he had  
in high school: long crimson hair, perfect face, tall and slender  
and broad-shouldered... the light grey suit he was wearing was  
even rather reminiscent of his student council uniform...

She stared too long, obviously, because his head turned in  
her direction, and he saw her. She raised the newspaper quickly  
and ducked her head.

Footsteps approached across the thick carpet of the lounge.  
Stupid, stupid, stupid, she cursed herself. Stupid!

His shadow reached over the top of the paper and touched her  
face as he stood in the entrance to the nook. He softly cleared  
his throat to get her attention, as though it wasn't completely  
obvious despite her attempts at concealment that he had it  
already.

Slowly, she lowered the newspaper.

"Have we met somewhere before?" he asked. He had a strange  
expression on his face, one made up of a collection of slight  
exaggerations: eyes that were a little too wide, a neutral smile  
that was a little too neutral.

She searched his expression for some hint of his true  
intentions, but found nothing. As far as she could tell, he was  
utterly sincere. Then again, she'd had plenty of experience of  
how good an actor he was.

How to play this, now that her carelessness had forced her  
to? Casual was best for now, she decided. "Really, sempai, is  
that the best line you've been able to think up in seven years?"

"Then we have met before," he murmured, more to himself than  
to her, and sat down in the chair across from her. "'Sempai'..."  
He pronounced the honourific slowly, as though tasting it with  
his mouth like a fine wine. "Then you went to Ohtori?"

"I'm insulted." She folded the newspaper on her lap and  
looked at him flatly. "You don't remember me at all?"

He shook his head. "Not from Ohtori."

"Then from where?"

Touga looked at her speculatively, then got up and leaned  
over as though to whisper into her ear. Crimson hair brushed her  
cheek like fine silk, whispering over the bruise so lightly as to  
be almost pleasurable.

Tenjou Utena, she told herself, you are playing a very  
dangerous game here. Touga had said nothing yet. His breath was  
warm against her face, and she could smell the mild, spicy scent  
of his cologne: exotic, a heady mix of sandalwood and jasmine,  
but no hint of roses. Somehow, that reassured her, as much as  
what he said when he finally spoke confused and almost frightened  
her.

"You are the prince of my dreams," he whispered. He had his  
eyes closed, seemed almost to be speaking from a dream himself.  
"Will you come with me?"

"Now?" she replied, once she found her voice. Questions  
whirled through her head: was he sincere, as she wanted to  
believe he'd been on that last bittersweet night before the fall  
(or after; when had the fall, her fall, begun?), or was it merely  
another mask? How had he come here? 

"Yes. Now." He straightened and took a step back, looking  
down at her with... Pleading? Awe? Affection?

"All right," she answered slowly. "I'll come with you.  
Where are we going to go?"

* * *

Darkness. Absolute, all-encompassing, never ending darkness. A  
darkness from the end of the world.

Then a voice spoke, and, lo, there was light.

"If something ever troubles you, come talk to me about it."

"No matter what, I'll help you."

"Don't be afraid."

"If you're in pain, if you cry out, even in your dreams, I  
will hear you and know."

"I will come."

"I will save you."

And she was rushing upwards, arms outstretched, fingers  
spread wide, tears streaming down her face, crying out a name  
from her heart as the darkness pressed all around... 

Anthy woke up with a start, greeted by agony of all her  
remembered wounds and the total darkness of her cell. She would  
have cried out with the pain, but her throat was too dry to let  
her form words.

She slumped forward in the chair, expecting the resistance  
of the bonds on her wrists and ankles to keep her upright, and  
fell out of it.

Too surprised and weak to even realize she was free before  
she hit the floor, she landed badly in her own dried blood,  
jamming the broken fingers on both hands against the concrete  
floor, which sent shocking, awakening agony through her entire  
body.

She tried to scream, couldn't help herself, and managed to  
croak thinly. She was bruised and cut and pierced and broken,  
almost insensate from pain and weakness, but she was free. Free!

She sucked in power as though taking a vast inhalation of  
breath before diving deep underwater. The pain faded. Scabbed-  
over lacerations became tiny scars, broken bones began to knit  
again, new teeth poked hesitantly through her gums to replace the  
ones she'd lost. Then the agony hit again. Not enough power.  
Nature abhorred what she was trying to do, and fought back. She  
gritted her teeth and reached out for Chu-Chu, bridging the  
distance between them instantly now that she was free of her  
bonds. Strength and fear and love and worry flowed back through  
their link as he woke; she gasped and her back arched  
involuntarily. So much power... She staggered to her feet, and  
almost slipped and fell in a puddle of her own blood. Still not  
enough...

No other choice. 

Wind rose at her feet, fluttering the rags of her clothes.  
The darkened bulb overhead suddenly expended all its light in one  
bright flare as it exploded, and the shards were powder before  
they hit the floor. By that time, the room was no longer dark:  
light burned upon her brow like a crown of stars.

Ahh, yes, oh, God, she'd forgotten how good this felt... the  
power, the glory of it, the thrill of _bending_ reality to her  
will, of being beyond all laws...

Cracks rived the concrete floor and walls as though they  
were plate glass struck by a hammer. Ceiling timbers shivered  
and warped as premature rot began to consume them. With a  
creak and a groan, the chair and table splintered and collapsed. 

Anthy threw back her head and cried out in agony and  
ecstasy. Electricity arced in forking bolts from the wall  
socket and played across her body in a cloak of fire, raising  
every hair and consuming what remained of her clothing. 

She laughed, and waved her hand, as lightning leapt from  
between her lips and light crowned her head. Electric blue flame  
tightened across her naked flesh, then solidified into a plain  
but wearable blouse and skirt of sky-pale azure.

Finished.

She gasped suddenly, and hunched forward, coughing fiercely.  
When she recovered and wiped her lips with the back of her hand,  
it came away with small flecks of blood on it. Finished, but  
still weak.

She had to get out of here. Questions about how she'd  
gotten free (she could see cold-forged iron manacles lying open  
and undamaged in the ruins of the chair) could wait for later.

The door was unlocked; Leo obviously hadn't even considered  
the possibility of her escaping. How _had_ she escaped? That  
dream, that voice... it couldn't be...

Later, she told herself. Escape, first.

Outside, she half-staggered down the narrow hallway, pausing  
every few steps to lean against the wood-paneled walls and take  
deep, gasping breaths. There were two other doors similar to her  
cell's in the short hallway, but she ignored them. Behind her,  
the hallway opened up into a larger room shrouded in darkness--  
all the lights were off, and she had only her crown of light to  
see by--and, close up ahead, she could see stairs rising. She  
guessed she was in the basement of a large house.

Upon reaching the stairs, she sank down to her knees and  
pillowed her head against her forearms on the bottom step. She  
no longer felt any pain from the wounds of her torture, but a  
desperate weariness remained.

Escape... Anthy forced herself to rise and groped for the  
wall with both hands. The light upon her brow flared and when  
she drew away, her palm-prints were burned into wood turned  
black with age where they had rested. Even as she struggled up  
the stairs towards the door at the top, the dark corrosion of the  
palm-prints began to spread outwards like inky pools.

At the top, she put her ear to the door and listened.  
Hearing nothing, she reached for the knob, then stopped. She was  
so weak that even standing was an effort, but the risk...

She steeled herself and sent her mind probing out through  
the door to whatever lay on the other side. It gave her a  
blinding headache. A small room... domestic-seeming... burnished  
metal... heat... a kitchen... one other exit... beyond that...

pain

sharp

death

fear

The shock of so much psychic agony almost made her fall back  
down the stairs, as her mind retreated instinctively from the  
terrible residual pain lingering in the room beyond the kitchen.  
She caught herself against the wall, then stumbled down to crouch  
awkwardly on the steps while she dry-heaved for a long,  
excruciating minute.

I don't want to go out there, she thought desperately. I  
don't want to see whatever it was that left those traces. She  
knew with an almost visceral knowledge that whatever had happened  
up there had some intimate connection to her escape.

But what was she to do? Wait here in the darkness like a  
frightened child? She had to find someplace safe to rest and  
recover her strength. She had to get out of here.

She opened the door, and was immediately hit with the  
coppery tang of blood and the stench of bowels loosed in death.  
There was nothing of note in the small, clean, white kitchen,  
with its wall hung with shiny steel pots (so reminiscent of the  
shiny steel of Salvadore's tools) and its large stove; the  
place of killing lay beyond, a large dining room dominated by a  
thick oaken table big enough to seat a dozen men.

Which was, she guessed, how many lay dead in it. It was  
hard to tell for certain, they were in so many pieces. Blood was  
everywhere, splashed on the floor and walls, sprayed across the  
table and chairs. The dead men predominantly had dark Latin  
complexions, but she noted two (perhaps three; so many pieces...)  
Asians. Leo did not seem to be among them, but then again, there  
didn't seem to be enough heads to account for all the torsos and  
arms and hands and legs...

She covered her open, silently-screaming mouth with one  
trembling hand, and leaned heavily against the archway dividing  
kitchen and dining room to prevent herself from falling over.  
Sunlight streaming in from the small kitchen window and the big  
round-arch windows of the dining room indicated it was early  
morning, but she might as well have stood within the dead of  
night.

(and when the prince came forth upon hearing his sister's  
cries)

So much _blood_...

(and saw what the people's hands had done)

...the smell of it...

(what the people's hands had done)

...trying to detach herself to keep from screaming...

(the sickness and weakness left his body, and the strength  
of hate filled him)

...swords rose and fell, hewing her body as though she were  
a block of timber...

(he drew his sword and fell upon them)

...the cabin door opened...

(fell upon them as the harvester's scythe falls upon the  
wheat)

...shouts and curses became cries of agony and fear...

(as the woodman's axe falls upon the young saplings)

...silver steel whirled through the air...

(as the stooping eagle falls upon the doves--so did the  
prince fall upon them, until crimson gore poured over all  
the land, and no thing would grow there for a thousand  
years)

...a click.

(the wives and daughters and mothers and sisters cried out  
in mourning for their husbands and fathers and sons and  
brothers, cried out, "Why, oh Prince, our Prince, hast thou  
done these things?")

Anthy turned numbly towards the sound and raised her hand.

(the prince said nothing, for he had no voice left from  
all his weeping. He lifted his sister's body in his  
bloody arms and left the land forever... some say to seek  
the Ends of the World, and some say to...)

Salvadore, who lay eviscerated but still living in one  
corner, froze. His fingers unclenched spasmodically at a gesture  
from Anthy, and the long black pistol clattered to the bloody  
floor.

Anthy locked eyes with him and walked carefully across the  
floor, avoiding limbs and bodies as though they were drifts of  
snow, stepping over pools of blood as though they were puddles  
left by a rainshower.

"Who did this?" she demanded, compelling him to answer. 

"A prince," the dying man murmured in Spanish. He smiled a  
bloody smile. "A prince in black..."

"More," she said softly, and _pushed_.

Salvadore spasmed, murmured, "...white cape..." in a barely  
audible voice, and died.

She turned away from him without another glance (the push  
had only hastened his inevitable death), and thus ended up only  
being shot grazingly in the left shoulder rather than full in  
the back.

The gunshot's report echoed deafeningly in her ears as the  
bullet's impact half-spun her round, nearly knocking her to the  
floor. Almost instinctively, without even getting a clear sight  
of the firer, she threw a heavy burst of power in the direction  
of the attack; there came a pained cry, abruptly cut off by the  
sharp sound of a body impacting something solid.

Clutching her right hand to her left shoulder (the wound was  
not serious, but, on top of everything else, it was terribly  
painful), she turned around. 

And paled.

"Oh, no," she whispered. "No." Feeling suddenly so weak as  
to be barely able to walk, she hurried over to where Mathias lay  
near a set of open double doors leading out into a wide hallway  
with a staircase leading up. The gun he'd shot her with was  
still clutched tightly in his hand. His head looked to have  
struck the door frame hard enough to give him a concussion; there  
was hideous laceration on the left side of his head that was  
bleeding freely, and blood ran from his ears and nose as well. 

Footsteps. A gasp of shock, one that seemed to struggle to  
draw the air necessary to make it. 

Anthy turned her head and looked across the blood-soaked  
room to where Leo stood, framed in the opposite set of double  
doors, a scabbarded sword held in one hand. He looked from left  
to right, eyes wide, face pallid, as though he could not believe  
the sight.

Then his gaze fixed upon her where she knelt over Mathias,  
and his eyes narrowed to ashen slits. "Murderer," he snarled.  
"Damned murdering witch. God have mercy on you..." And he drew  
the blade, tossed the scabbard aside. "...because I will not."

* * *

"Nice."

"Yes."

"Must be very spacious."

"It is."

"Somehow, though, I didn't expect to find Kiryuu Touga  
driving a minivan."

Touga shrugged, smiled what might have been a self-  
deprecating smile, and unlocked the doors of the black minivan  
using a small remote control on his key ring. "You obviously  
remember me better than I remember you," he said with a bit of  
melancholy. "I'm not who I was at Ohtori." He sounded almost  
apologetic, even a little uncertain, as if he were trying to  
affirm the fact for himself as well as explain it to her.

Utena walked behind him to the passenger door, which he  
opened for her. Ohtori Academy's rose crest was done in red on  
the hood and sides of the van. She stepped up to the passenger  
seat and settled back comfortably against its plush upholstery.  
Touga closed the door her, and walked around the front of the van  
to the driver's side. Utena watched him appraisingly through the  
windshield. He moved with the same easy grace and agility he'd  
had at Ohtori--the same grace and agility of the Knight of  
Pentacles?

The same knight whom she'd thrown out a ten-story window,  
and yet remained convinced was still alive. This is a dangerous  
game you play, she told herself again. You have no idea what he  
knows, or where he's going to take you. Or why he came to the  
hotel--how did he know to come here?

The prince of his dreams... Whatever did that mean?

The latch of the driver's-side door clicked, switching the  
tracks of her train of thought to other directions. Touga hopped  
up into the driver's seat, turned his key in the ignition, and  
put the van into gear. They left the hotel's parking lot and  
started down the highway towards Houou, following the same route  
as Nanami and the others had started down a little over a half-  
hour earlier.

"Where are we going?" she asked. It occurred to her that she  
should have been more nervous than she actually was. 

"To where I live now," he answered. 

"Why?"

"We can talk there."

"And we couldn't talk at the hotel because..."

He sighed. "It wouldn't have felt right. And I have some  
things I need to show you." 

Touga drove in silence for a few minutes. Utena watched the  
snow-speckled scenery pass; in the distance, she could see the  
shining ocean, capped by wave-foam whiter than the snow.

"This all must be very strange for you," Touga said  
suddenly. "Please, believe me when I say it's just as strange  
for me. Probably more so." She saw his hands tighten  
momentarily on the wheel. "I don't even remember what your name  
is. But you went to Ohtori? I don't remember that either."

"Tenjou Utena." She named herself quietly, watching his  
face carefully for a reaction. A flicker indicative of a  
suppressed look of surprise, maybe? A clouding of his blue eyes?

"Tenjou Utena." He seemed to mull her name in his mouth as  
he spoke it. "I... if I had even one memory carved within me,  
that would be enough. I know it would. But I don't. I don't  
remember you from Ohtori at all."

Utena shifted uncomfortably against the confines of the  
seatbelt. "You said I was the prince of your dreams. What did  
you mean?"

"I can explain more easily at home," he said after a moment.  
"Please; trust me for now."

"All right," she replied slowly. "I'll trust you. For  
now."

"Thank you," he said, glancing away from the road for a  
moment to smile warmly at her. She almost blushed.

Don't be a fool, she thought. Remember who he seemed to be  
when you first met him? And what he turned out to be? Even  
after that one sweet night in the Duelling Arena, with the  
aurora overhead like successive veils of light, he'd challenged  
her again.

And he'd sent that Rose Signet to Nanami, the one currently  
sitting in the depths of her purse wrapped in three layers of  
tissue. 

"It's such a funny coincidence, meeting up like this," she  
began cautiously. "Why were you at that hotel today?"

"I got a call from my little sister yesterday," he said.  
They were entering into Houou's main city now, and he turned off  
at the next exit from the highway. "Do you remember her?  
Nanami."

"Yes, I remember her."

"You've read about what happened at Ohtori recently? The  
boy who killed another in the duel?"

Utena nodded slowly.

"Well, he was a friend of hers. Tsuwabuki Mitsuru; this  
information doesn't get spread around, you realize. I only know  
it because I'm the Assistant Director of Off-Campus Operations  
for Ohtori." He paused. "That's why I have this vehicle, by the  
way. It belongs to Ohtori Academy. Part of my duties involve  
coordinating tours for students interested in coming to Ohtori.  
I drive them around in this." A vague smile graced his face.  
"It's not exactly a dashing vehicle, I'll admit, but it's  
functional."

"Comfortable, too."

"And the sound system is wonderful. Turn on the radio, if  
you'd like to hear it."

Utena did so. A melancholy woodwind melody filled the  
interior of the minivan, underlaid by brooding pizzicato strings.  
Soon enough, a mezzo voice entered:

o/` Wenn dein M�tterlein  
o/` Tritt zur T�r herein  
o/` Mit der Kerze Schimmer,  
o/` Ist es mir, als immer  
o/` K�mst du mit herein,  
o/` Huschtest hinterdrein  
o/` Als wie sonst ins Zimmer.

"Eww. Mahler." Utena wrinkled her nose distastefully and  
turned it off.

"Mahler tried to put the world into what he composed," Touga  
said quietly. "Unfortunately, so much of the world is ugly. I  
much prefer Dvorak or Sibelius."

"I agree. And you still haven't told me why you were at the  
hotel today."

They were in Houou's small but busy downtown now, driving  
past office buildings and stores. Touga turned into the  
underground parking garage of a tall condominium building, and  
they left the bright day behind for artificial lights that  
glared down from the dark concrete ceiling.

"I know Nanami well enough to know that she'd likely come  
to Houou without telling me. She likes to pay me surprise  
visits, and this incident with Mitsuru would give her an excuse  
to do that." He pulled into a larger-than-usual space marked  
with a RESERVED sign and a number; the concrete wall was to one  
side, and a graceful red motorcycle was to the other, looking  
rather lost in occupying a parking space meant for another  
minivan. "Not that she wouldn't want to see Mitsuru anyway,  
but..."

"Nanami had something of a big brother complex," Utena  
blurted, before she could stop herself.

Touga nodded uncomfortably as he turned the ignition off.  
"It's true."

Not any more, Utena thought dully; whatever memories had  
been brought back for Nanami, they seemed to make it unlikely  
that she'd be hanging off Touga's arm any time soon.

"Anyway," Touga said, as they exited the minivan, "Nanami  
only stays at two different hotels when she comes to Houou, if  
she doesn't stay with me. I checked the first one, and she  
wasn't registered there, so I went to the second, and spotted you  
when I was asking for her at the desk."

"Oh. So it was all just a weird coincidence."

"I suppose." Touga indicated the motorcycle with his hand  
as they passed it, heading for the elevators. "That's my solo  
transport when the weather's warmer."

"Hmm. Looks big enough for two."

"It is. I have a sidecar for it in storage, although I  
haven't used it in... years now. Ever since I lost touch with  
Kyouichi. Do you remember him? Saionji Kyouichi."

"Yes, I remember him. What happened?"

"We drifted apart," Touga answered, but he looked unhappy,  
and Utena felt quite certain he wasn't telling the whole truth.  
No need to press on this topic, however.

They waited at the elevators in silence for the car to  
descend, then entered. Touga inserted a card into a slot in the  
elevator's panel and pressed the button for the top floor. Utena  
leaned back with her hands clutching the bar on the back wall,  
and stared at all the reflections of the two of them in the  
mirrored walls. "So, you don't remember me from Ohtori at all?"

"No," Touga said. He had his back to her, facing the doors  
of the elevator, so she couldn't see his expression in the  
mirrors. "Not from Ohtori."

"But... from dreams?"

"Yes," he replied. "From my dreams. It will make more  
sense--as much as it can ever make sense, I suppose--once we get  
to my penthouse."

"You have a penthouse? Must be expensive."

"After our father died and Nanami moved to Tokyo for  
university, I sold our old house," Touga said. "It was too big  
just for me. I wouldn't want for money even if I didn't work for  
Ohtori."

"Sorry to hear about your father," Utena said automatically.

Touga shrugged. "Our mother died when I was fourteen.  
Father started going on a lot more business trips after that, and  
was never around much. He had a heart attack while drinking in a  
geisha bar in Kyoto with some of his business friends."

"Oh." Utena went uncomfortably silent until they reached  
the top floor. The elevator dinged, the door opened, and they  
stepped off right into Touga's penthouse itself. It was well-lit  
and spacious, filled with a tasteful, equally-divided mix of  
Western and traditional Japanese furniture and art. There were  
very few real walls, and the big central area was divided into  
rough sections--living room, dining room, study, bedroom--by a  
succession of artfully-painted folding screens. All the outer  
walls were little more than large windows, with thick curtains  
drawn over them in some cases to guide the placement of natural  
light throughout the penthouse.

"Nice place," Utena said, trying and failing to take in  
everything at once. Touga obviously didn't want for money at  
all.

Touga nodded vaguely and hung his jacket on a free-standing  
rack by the door. He held out his hands to take her jacket, then  
hung it beside his. "Please; sit down. Thank you for coming.  
For trusting me. I know how strange this must be."

"I'm used to strange," Utena said, kneeling and slipping off  
her shoes. As she straightened up again, she heard a plaintive  
meow, and a fat chocolate tabby with black stripes came trotting  
out from behind one folding screen to rub up against Touga's  
legs.

"Yes, Barako, I'm home." Touga knelt and rubbed the cat's  
head affectionately. 

"Is that the cat Himemiya gave you?" Utena asked.

"Himemiya?" Touga looked confused for a minute, then  
nodded. "Oh, yes, Himemiya. She went out with Kyouichi for a  
while, didn't she? I suppose she did give Barako to me. I don't  
know why I didn't remember that."

I do, Utena thought. He was either sincere, or an  
incredibly good actor. She found herself wanting to believe the  
first, but there was so much more evidence for the latter...

He led her into the "living room", past a folding screen  
decorated with an expansive depiction of the sea and a seaside  
town, and seated her in a comfortable, slope-backed chair made of  
light, flexible wood. Barako followed them, hopping onto an  
ottoman placed near a chair identical to the one Utena sat in  
before curling into a furry ball and apparently falling asleep.

"Would you like something to drink?" Touga asked.

"What do you have?"

"Anything you want, probably. A soft drink? A cocktail?"

"Can you make a margarita?" Utena asked, smiling.

"Give me a few minutes." He walked off towards the kitchen,  
one of the few rooms actually closed off by interior walls.

She hadn't had a margarita in over a year. The last time  
would have been her twentieth birthday, when Anthy took her out  
to a restaurant they really couldn't afford. It had been a  
wonderful birthday, but they'd had to eat even more frugally  
than usual for two weeks afterward because of it.

Touga returned a few minutes later with a perfectly-made  
margarita in a salt-rimmed glass, a brandy for himself, and a  
large manilla folder. He handed Utena her drink, sat down across  
from her with the folder in his lap, and sipped his brandy.

Utena tasted the margarita appreciatively. "Mmm. Good."

"Part of my job means I host a lot of gatherings here,"  
Touga said, smiling slightly. "I've become something of a  
bartender." He reached down and idly stroked his cat's head,  
then handed her the folder. "Anyway... take a look in there."

Utena put her drink down on a coaster resting on a small  
table beside her chair and opened the folder. And stared at the  
top paper of the small stack within.

"I never even considered myself much of an artist," Touga  
said softly. "But... when I took a pencil in one hand, and  
thought of my dreams... I mean really thought about them, hard,  
picturing them in my mind..."

"This is... me..." Utena murmured, shuffling through the  
dozen or so sketches with increasing confusion and wonder.  
"But... no, it isn't. I don't look like this."

"Yes, you do," Touga said urgently. "Well, other than the  
hair, and... other obvious differences."

The first sketch was a facial portrait done in charcoal  
pencil, carefully shaded and precisely drawn. "Like looking into  
a mirror, almost," Utena said, more to herself than to Touga.  
The lips were a little thinner, the face perhaps a little  
stronger, more overtly masculine (although still quite  
androgynous)... the hair was in a short page-boy cut, but it was  
her face, subtly changed.

The next sketch, a full-body one, made it clear that the  
one depicted was male: stripped to the waist, barefoot, clad only  
in black trousers, the young man with her face wielded a heavy  
broadsword against a horde of enemies suggested rather than  
openly depicted by shading at the edges of the picture. In the  
next, he wore ornate dark armour and rode upon a caparisoned  
white horse, with a heavy lance in one hand. Utena stared as  
though struck by deja vu, then looked at the next one: the prince  
with her face relaxed beneath a tree with bowing branches in a  
sylvan glade, his fingers plucking delicately at the strings of a  
harp. 

"W... what are these?" Utena asked, shuffling further  
through them. The prince faced a terrible dragon in one; in  
another, he stood with his head tilted back, staring up at the  
one lit window of an otherwise dark tower.

"Drawings from my dreams," Touga answered softly. "So, my  
prince... what do you think it means?" He took a deep draught of  
brandy and settled back into his chair. "What I think... I think  
all I've done, what I've tried to do... has been so that I could  
meet you. So I could meet you again." He smiled like a man who  
emerges from a dark cave, and sees again the sun last seen so  
long ago that he did not know if the memory of it was true. "It  
all makes so much more sense now."

Utena blinked slowly, then closed the folder and laid it  
aside. "'What you've tried to do?'"

* * *

Anthy wasn't afraid at all. As Leo stalked towards her, she  
locked eyes with him and reached out to freeze him in place.

When the power parted around him like waves breaking upon a  
jut of rock... then she began to be afraid. He would kill her  
if he could, and she was weak, and her power could not touch him.

He advanced slowly, murder in his eyes. She tried to grab  
and pull his sword away, but she could not touch that either.  
Her head throbbed with pain, and green light seemed to strobe  
before her eyes. A chair lifted and flung by a wave of her hand  
rebounded a foot from him and smashed to flinders against the  
wall, as though some invisible shield surrounded him.

"Don't you see, witch?" He smiled triumphantly, and pointed  
at her with his sword (a gleaming Spanish-style rapier, almost a  
twin of the one he'd used so many decades before). "I am  
protected from your infernal might."

He was wearing something, probably under his clothes,  
something enchanted to protect him from witchcraft. She knew it  
could be done, but whatever he had would have to be incredibly  
strong to turn aside even her power. Perhaps if she'd been  
stronger, she could have overcome it, but weak as she was now...

Leo was almost upon her now. Anthy sucked in a breath, and  
gave out one last, agonizingly painful push of power. With a  
rattle of rings, the heavy dark curtains drew themselves over the  
room's large windows. As the overhead lights were off, the act  
plunged the room into almost total darkness.

"You think that will stop me?" Leo snarled, a vague shadow  
in the darkness with a thin silvery gleam of residual light upon  
his blade. "I'll hunt you to the ends of the world! I swear by  
God and Christ--"

"And the Holy Ghost and Mary the Virgin and all the saints,"  
Anthy said. "But what's more important to you, Leo? Killing me,  
or saving the boy?" She steeled herself, and drew a deep breath.  
"Why don't we find out?"

The curtains exploded into flames, so swiftly and powerfully  
that the windows behind them burst outwards in sprays of glinting  
glass. The room was suddenly full of blazing light: red and  
yellow danced luridly across mutilated bodies and pools of blood.  
Leo instinctively threw up a hand to shield his eyes as Anthy  
turned and ran for where she assumed the front door to be,  
stepping over Mathias's limp body as she did.

She heard pounding footsteps behind her; turning back, she  
slashed her hand through the air. A line of fire leapt up from  
the floorboards as though rising from a chasm deep within the  
belly of the earth, bisecting the hall with her on one side and  
him on the other; Leo barely stopped himself from running  
straight into it.

"Are you mad?" Anthy screamed at him from the other side,  
shaking with exhaustion and fear. "Save the boy! What have you  
become? You can hunt me down later, but he'll _die_ if you don't  
get him out of here and to a hospital!"

"I have time to kill you and save him!" Leo snapped, eyes  
glittering with reflected flames. He made as though to leap  
through the thin curtain of fire; Anthy, almost weeping with the  
effort, tripled its apparent width. Behind Leo, the dining room  
was rapidly becoming a sea of flames.

"You don't," she said, almost pleading. "Save him. And you  
can't run through these flames; whatever you have--"

"I have holiness to protect me! Men have walked through  
fire for God before!" But he did not move, and threw a glance  
back over his shoulder towards Mathias.

"--whatever you wear that protects you from my power, it  
won't protect you from these. I've only started them. Save the  
boy." And she turned away from him and hurried to the front  
door. Behind her, she could hear Leo cursing her, in Japanese,  
in English, in Spanish, calling her every vile name he could  
apparently think of in every language he knew: witch, murderer,  
whore, slut, devil, temptress, betrayer, and many more. She  
ignored him, shoved open the shadowy door at the end of the  
hallway, and was hit by a blast of bone-chilling winter air  
almost crippling to adjust to after the heat of the flames.

She stumbled down cold wooden steps and collapsed to the  
frost-hardened earth at the bottom. Gritting her teeth, she  
forced herself to rise again, and look back. It was a very  
large house in a western architectural style, and it was  
currently going up in flames. The door she'd exited through  
seemed to be a side door.

The house was built atop a hill, and there didn't seem to be  
any neighbours. She must have been brought to an isolated rural  
area. Beneath her bare feet, snow sucked eagerly at her body  
heat; she shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. Glass  
from broken windows glinted on the white like scattered jewels.

She had to get out of here--get to somewhere safe, and her  
apartment certainly wasn't safe, Leo knew where that was, and  
he'd be after her as soon as he'd made sure Mathias was safe.

If they got out alive.

Anthy looked back. Flames were licking from the windows of  
many rooms, now. It wouldn't take more than a little push to  
make them burn more eagerly: brighter, hotter, larger, fiercer,  
stronger...

From inside the house, she heard the creak and groan of wood  
about to collapse. It sounded like the scream of some vast  
animal in agony.

No more than a little push...

"No." She hugged herself tightly, teeth chattering, and  
turned away from that road. Drawing on what little power she had  
left to protect herself from the numbing cold, she ran over the  
snow to the front of the house. As she'd suspected, there were  
several vehicles--a big dark van and two cars--parked in a small  
lot before the wide stairs leading to the double doors of the  
front entrance.

She chose a small, beat-up, blue Toyota. It was unlocked;  
thank God (or Fate or Chance or whatever else, she didn't really  
care at this point) for small graces. When she stumbled inside  
and weakly closed the door, she almost wept for joy. The keys  
were on the dashboard.

After turning the ignition on, she immediately put the heat  
as high as she could, then pulled out onto the rough road leading  
down the hill, presumably towards a highway. Behind her, the  
flames of the burning house rose higher.

* * *

Touga looked at her in silence for a moment, then drained the  
last of his brandy before speaking. "When you were at Ohtori,  
did you ever meet the deputy chairman?"

"Ohtori Akio?" Utena stared at her hands. "I met him a few  
times."

"Did you ever think that he might not be..." Touga seemed  
to search for the words for a moment. "Might not be what he  
appeared?"

"A few times," Utena answered softly. 

"What I'm about to say is probably going to strike you as  
very strange." Touga sighed, and looked away from her. "But  
you've seen those drawings. Those are strange as well..."

"Go on," Utena prompted gently.

"Ohtori Akio is a murderer," Touga said slowly, waiting to  
see her response. Utena thought about faking shock and surprise,  
but finally decided against it. Touga continued: "I don't have  
proof that he's ever directly killed anyone, but there's people  
who would be alive today if not for him. Akino Hasuichi, the boy  
Tsuwabuki Mitsuru killed, is one of them. Kaoru Kozue--you might  
remember her or her brother, Miki--is another. I think he may  
have killed Ohtori Kanae, the woman he was engaged to, probably  
by poisoning her." He paused, and looked at her ruefully. "I  
know this sounds crazy, but..."

"No. Continue."

Touga took a deep breath and folded his hands in his lap.  
"I think Ohtori Akio is planning something terrible, and has been  
for some time, although I cannot say what. I leaked the  
information about the boy being killed in the duel to newspapers  
outside of Houou. Otherwise, it never would have been news at  
all. Akio doesn't just control Ohtori, he controls the city:  
I've got evidence showing bribes to judges, to the chief of  
police, to the editor of the newspaper... he runs this city like  
his own little kingdom."

"Why?"

Touga gestured helplessly with his hands. "I don't know,"  
he muttered. "I've had to be so cautious... I don't think he has  
any hint of what I know, what I've done... there's a secret club  
at Ohtori, called the Duellist's Society... it's headed by the  
Student Council President, advised by Kaoru Miki--"

"What? Miki-kun?" _That_ was what she'd forgotten: she'd  
never asked Nanami if she knew where Miki was.

"Kaoru Miki got his Master's last year," Touga explained.  
"You may remember he was taking university-level courses, even  
when he was only in the seventh grade. He came back to Ohtori as  
a teacher and guidance counsellor this year. I know he's  
connected to the Duellist's Society, but I don't know if he knows  
what they and Ohtori Akio are really up to..."

"Miki wouldn't do that kind of thing," Utena said hotly,  
balefully staring Touga in the eye. "He's obviously just being  
used by Akio."

Touga blinked, slowly. "You sound as though..."

Utena replied quickly, flustered: "I mean, if Ohtori Akio  
is up to what you say he is. I don't know if he is. But Miki  
wouldn't be involved in that kind of... what _do_ you think Akio  
is involved in? And this Duellist's Society?"

"I keep on hearing the word 'revolution'," Touga said  
quietly. "I think Ohtori, Houou... they're just practice. Akio  
seeing how easy it is to control an entire city. The students  
who have gone to Ohtori in the past have gone on to become  
wealthy businessmen, important political leaders... powerful  
people." He looked up at the ceiling. "I think Akio may be  
planning to overthrow Japan's government. Not now, maybe not  
even in ten years. But in fifteen, twenty... when the students  
who were in the Duellist's Society are out in the world, as  
businessmen and politicians and academics... or maybe it's  
already begun, maybe..."

Utena wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. It was  
completely wrong, of course, but, given the surface information,  
it had a certain twisted logic to it. Akio and Touga must have  
spent a long time making it up (and had a lot of fun doing it,  
too) if Touga _was_ acting.

But if he wasn't... if he was already opposing Akio, with  
what little information he had...

"What about these dreams?" she asked.

"They were what started me on this road," Touga explained.  
"I don't remember you from Ohtori--more on that later--but you  
remember me. I was... a playboy." He pronounced the last word  
with a mix of faint wistfulness and profound distaste. "I broke  
quite a few hearts in my time. Lost more than one friend because  
of it, too." He paused. "I wasn't a very good person back then.

"One night, soon after I graduated from college and went to  
work for Ohtori, I dreamt that I was fighting a battle with  
someone I knew to be a prince--the prince who looked like you.  
It was supposed to be to the death, but, after the prince had  
disarmed me and put the point of his sword to my throat, he did  
not kill me. Instead, he smiled down at me, and said:

"'You are a worthy foe, but have lived too long in the  
darkness. If you will only seek the eternal, miraculous light  
that I have found, then you shall shine as bright as a star, and  
become a prince as I have.'"

But I couldn't become a prince, Utena thought with dull  
pain. That was why everything fell apart at the end, because I  
wasn't a prince. But she said nothing.

"The prince sheathed his sword and helped me to my feet; he  
gave me back my sword, and pointed it towards the sky, and I saw  
the face of Ohtori Akio, monstrously huge, looking down upon the  
earth like a second moon. His smile was most terrible thing  
I'd ever seen."

Touga stopped talking and looked at her, as if awaiting a  
response.

"That's really strange," she said weakly.

He nodded, and looked disappointed. "Do you have any...  
strange memories about Ohtori?"

"Not really," Utena lied. "I went there for less than two  
years. Played a lot of sports, did pretty mediocre in my  
classes, then transferred away to another school."

"Oh. Why are you back in Houou, then?"

Utena's mind froze up. They'd never come up with a story to  
explain her presence here. "Visiting friends," she blurted.

Touga nodded. "After I had that dream, I started looking  
into Ohtori Akio... let me show you something." He got up and  
went into the study area; the folding screens hid him from  
Utena's sight, but she could hear drawers opening and papers  
being shuffled.

What to do, she wondered. If he wasn't lying, and _if_ he  
really didn't remember anything, restoring his memories would  
give them another ally against Akio, one with great connections  
at Ohtori and much more knowledge than any of them could hope to  
have about what Akio was currently up to.

But if this was just another act, if he was in league with  
Akio again... well, then he already had to know why she was  
really here. Even if he wasn't the Knight. So there was nothing  
to lose by trying to restore his memories. If he was genuine,  
they'd have a powerful sword on their side; if he was acting,  
then he'd probably pretend to "remember", but she was fairly  
certain she'd be able to tell if he was faking or not. 

Fairly certain.

"Just a minute," Touga called; drawers were still opening,  
papers were still shuffling. "I'm having a little trouble  
finding it."

A third possibility occurred to her: everyone had changed  
once they had their full memories restored. Could Touga change  
for the worse if he was given back his memories? Shiori (and  
Nanami, although that was getting much better) had become  
hostile to her after they got their memories back.

But he'd said he loved her, on that beautiful, painful night  
atop the Duelling Arena... Or had that just been another lie?  
She heard him returning, and fiercely shoved the thoughts away. 

"Take a look at this." He handed her a ragged photograph,  
faded with age. "I found it in the archives."

"The Dungeon? Miki-kun told me about that once. Isn't it  
full of spiders the size of your hand, and nothing's filed  
properly, and..."

Touga chuckled. "It's not that bad. Look at the photo."

The photo, torn slightly on the upper right side, colour  
leeched from it by the passage of years, showed three people.  
Utena recognized two: Akio and Mikage Souji. Between them was an  
attractive, stylish woman in her twenties with short dark hair. 

"It's old," Utena murmured. Mikage was dressed differently,  
and wore tinted glasses. "How old?"

"Look at the back," Touga said.

She turned it over. Written on the back in fading ink was:

Himemiya Akio  
Chida Tokiko  
Nemuro Chirikazu

"Nemuro?" she murmured questioningly. Tokiko... he'd  
called her that when they fought. And the date, written under  
the names... "This is over thirty years old."

"Yes. And he hasn't aged a day."

She handed the photo back to him, no longer having to fake  
surprise. So Mikage _hadn't_ just been another student  
conspirator... Who had he been, then? And what had happened to  
him after she'd defeated him and left him sobbing on his knees,  
murmuring the name "Mamiya"--a name that meant nothing to her--  
over and over again amidst the scattered petals of his torn black  
rose?

Had it been anyone else, she would have sympathized, tried  
to help him... but she'd had no sympathy for Mikage. He'd hurt  
too many people, too many friends, with his puppeteering.  
Perhaps if she'd been able to have even a little sympathy for  
him, things would have turned out differently.

"So what do you think?" Touga asked finally. "I can show  
you the documents if you want... show you how Akio's got Houou's  
government in the palm of his hand."

"No." Utena shook her head while rising from the chair.  
The margarita lay unfinished, ice almost entirely melted. "This  
photo... I think you really are on to something." She decided  
then and there to talk things over with Juri and the others  
before deciding just what to do about Touga. That was what she  
should have done with Nanami, instead of arbitrarily restoring  
the memories despite her suspicions. "I'm just not sure what."

"I think something might have been done to some people who  
went to Ohtori," Touga said slowly, reaching down to pick up the  
empty glass. "Do you want to finish this?"

"Yeah, sure." Utena took the glass and gulped it all down  
without thinking, and thus experienced the rare combination of an  
alcohol buzz and an ice-induced headache at the same time.  
"Gahh."

Touga took the glass back; their fingers brushed. He smiled  
at her. "Best to drink it more slowly."

"Good advice," Utena gasped. "What's that you said about  
something being done to people who went to Ohtori?"

"As I said, I don't remember you from Ohtori at all," Touga  
said. "Yet the prince of my dreams has your face. And you  
remind me of him... You have a... nobility to you, if you don't  
mind my saying so."

"I don't mind," Utena murmured, looking away from him.

"But you don't remember anything strange about Ohtori at  
all," Touga continued. "Maybe you should." He paused. "A few  
months back, I managed to acquire one of the rings worn by  
members of the Duellist's Society. I found that if I wore it  
while I slept, my dreams of the prince were much more vivid... as  
an experiment, I sent it to my sister. She told me that she  
began to have dreams after she got it, about fighting duels; I  
think she joined her school's fencing team because of it."

"How odd." 

"Mind control experiments, perhaps?" Touga mused. "Some  
sort of hypnotic suggestion?"

"Could be."

"But what was going on? Why me? Why my sister?" He shook  
his head. "Far too many questions." 

"Lots of them."

Suddenly, his warm hand fell upon her shoulder. "Listen,"  
he said softly, "I don't want to put any burden upon you that  
you're not willing to bear. But I've been doing this all on my  
own for several years now, and... well, it gets rather lonely. I  
have to worry that everyone I come into contact with might be  
reporting back to Akio, so it's hard to get close to anyone.  
If you'd give me your help, perhaps, somehow, the two of us can  
stop this together." He smiled at her, and she couldn't help but  
blush a little. "Even if I only had you as a confidant and  
friend..."

"I'll help you if I can," Utena blurted, stepping away from  
his touch and his smile. "Though I don't know how much that will  
be."

"Thank you. That's enough. Simply meeting you again has  
been enough."

Utena said nothing; she couldn't even meet his eyes. She  
hated having to tell so many lies. It made her stomach hurt. 

Touga cleared his throat. "I'm going to visit the chairman  
now. The real one. Would you like to come and meet him? He's  
an interesting old gentleman."

Utena blinked. "Yes. I would."

"I'm glad." Touga put the photo down on the folder, picked  
up his empty brandy glass, and walked away towards the kitchen.  
"Could you put that photo in the folder and leave them on my  
desk? I'll put them away later."

Utena did as he asked, then went to the door to pull on her  
coat and shoes. Dangerous games, she thought--dangerous games.

* * *

Anthy walked out of the boutique in winter clothing--hat, coat,  
gloves, boots--that would have cost over a month's salary if  
she'd bought them with real money.

The clerks had been rather wary at an exhausted woman  
wearing a blue skirt and blouse, and nothing else (including  
shoes), but once she'd started pulling cash seemingly out of  
nowhere (which was more or less what she'd done), they'd become  
friendlier.

She felt a little guilty that the money would disappear in a  
few hours, but, to be honest, she'd just had her worst day in  
seven years and wasn't really feeling up to worrying about a few  
minor moral lapses.

She'd had to fight to keep from falling asleep while she  
drove, and it had taken her over an hour to find her way back to  
Sapporo. Will was the only thing keeping her on her feet at the  
moment, and even that was beginning to flag. 

What she needed now was a safe place to sleep for about  
three days, and someone to guard her while she did. It was only  
after she stumbled into the phone booth that she remembered she  
didn't actually know Saionji's number.

"Phone book," she murmured to herself. "You can look it up  
in the phone book." But her numb fingers couldn't seem to turn  
the pages properly, and all the letters and numbers blurred  
together into incomprehensible gibberish. "Damn it."

She walked back out into the cold, rubbed her temples hard  
in an attempt to lessen her horrific headache, and focused.

*SAIONJI KYOUICHI, I NEED YOUR HELP!*

That would get his attention. Barely able to walk and with  
her headache now so painful and all-consuming that she could  
almost ignore it, in the same way a massive bruise was easier to  
ignore than a papercut, she staggered into a nearby restaurant  
and sat down at a booth.

A slim waiter approached, pad at ready, and handed her a  
menu. "Something to drink to start?"

"Coffee," Anthy murmured. "A lot of it. And... bring me  
something to eat. I don't care. Teriyaki, yakisoba, yakitori,  
okonomiyaki, sandwiches, whatever you have. Whatever's good.  
You choose for me."

"The special's good today," the waiter said, looking at her  
a little confusedly. "It's soba noodles with--"

"Good. I'll have that. And some soup. Do you have soup  
here?" She glanced at the blurring menu and forced her eyes to  
focus. "Miso soup."

"Will that be all?"

"For now," Anthy said balefully, staring hard at the table  
in an attempt to prevent herself from passing out face-first onto  
it. "I may want more later."

She was still eating when Saionji arrived nearly an hour  
later, and at work on her fifth cup of coffee. 

* * *

Ohtori Mansion lay by the sea, built high atop a hillside whose  
long end sloped languidly towards the waves. A big central house  
with forward-curving eastern and western wings, it bore an  
obvious architectural affinity to Ohtori Academy: the huge facade  
was dominated by trefoil-arch windows that reminded Utena of the  
long archway-filled passages and walkways of Ohtori.

In addition to the main house, there were several adjunct  
buildings, including a large bell-shaped greenhouse with its  
glass surface carefully kept clear of snow. Snow-choked  
fountains and skeletal, naked trees arranged in precise rows  
made Utena guess that the gardens were quite extensive in the  
warmer seasons.

The entire sprawling immensity of the place was enclosed by  
tall sharp fences of wrought iron, and a security guard's small  
hut stood before the front gates. Touga rolled down the window  
and greeted the man on duty by name. The guard returned the  
greeting and pressed a button that swung the gates wide to admit  
the van.

"Nice place," Utena murmured. She paused. "But somehow...  
desolate. Is it nicer in the summer?"

"No," Touga said, a little sadly. "Not really."

"What's the chairman like?"

They parked in a small lot beside the western wing of the  
house. "He's not a well man," Touga answered, as he took the  
keys from the ignition. "But his mind is still sharp." As they  
walked against a bitingly cold wind down a half-cleared pathway  
towards the front of the house, Touga leaned in conspiratorially  
close to her, even though there was no one else even sight except  
a lone, hunched groundsman brushing snow from the trees over a  
hundred feet away. "I think Akio may be keeping him ill somehow;  
perhaps through poison." His face darkened. "Or more esoteric  
means." He straightened and moved a step away from her as they  
rounded the corner, approaching the tall, wide stairs leading up  
to the front doors. They passed into the shadow of the  
overhanging roof midway up the steps, and Utena noted that two  
massive columns engraved with rose motifs provided its support. 

She tried, but was unable to suppress a shiver at that  
sight. Touga glanced to her. "Cold? It will be warmer  
inside."

"Yes," Utena agreed perfunctorily, "cold."

Shortly after Touga banged the heavy brass knocker against  
its plate, the door was opened by a soberly-dressed middle-aged  
balding man. "Kiryuu-san," he said, bowing slightly as he  
ushered them into the huge front hall of the mansion, dominated  
by several large portraits on the walls of scholarly-looking men  
whom Utena assumed were the previous Ohtori chairmen. "Ohtori  
Hoshimi-san is waiting for you in the eastern drawing room;  
Ohtori Taiyoji-san is with her."

"Taiyoji-san?" Touga said, raising an eyebrow. "What a  
delightful surprise."

"I'm sure he'll be very glad to see you," the man replied  
without cracking a smile, either missing Touga's irony or too  
much the stoic to acknowledge it. He turned a laconic gaze to  
Utena, but said nothing.

"Kumozo-san, this is Tenjou-san, a friend of mine who also  
went to Ohtori; Tenjou-san, Kumozo-san is the major-domo of the  
Ohtori household."

"Hi. Nice to meet you." Utena bowed.

"An honour," Kumozo replied, and bowed back, though not  
quite as low as she had. "Kiryuu-san, do you require my escort  
to the eastern drawing room?"

"No thank you, Kumozo-san, I know where it is."

"Then I shall resume my other duties." Kumozo bowed again,  
then headed away up the left-hand of the two huge curving  
staircases leading to the second floor.

"Pompous ass," Utena muttered once he was out of earshot.

"Kumozo-san is a good man. He's merely very formal," Touga  
said quietly as he took of his coat and shoes. "We can put our  
outdoor clothing in the closet over there."

"Who are Ohtori Hoshimi and Ohtori Taiyoji?" 

"Ohtori Hoshimi is the chairman's wife," Touga replied as he  
closed the closet. "Taiyoji is the chairman's younger brother;  
he serves on the academy's Board of Trustees."

"Don't like him much, do you?"

Touga shrugged as he lead Utena down the eastern hallway  
adjoining the front hall, whose walls displayed several stylish  
Impressionist landscape paintings that looked in need of dusting.  
"Taiyoji's views on what Ohtori's educational direction should be  
conflict with mine," he explained. "And with that of the current  
chairman, and all the other trustees."

"Confrontational, huh?"

"At times." They passed under an archway; beyond it, the  
hallway opened up into a small, comfortable sitting room, with a  
fire blazing in the dominating marble fireplace and a half-dozen  
comfortable leather chairs. 

Ohtori Hoshimi, whom Utena vaguely recognized from when she'd  
come to lecture Akio about his treatment of Kanae, rose to greet  
them. She'd aged very well; Utena guessed she had to be in her  
early forties at minimum in order to be Kanae's mother, but there  
were very little visible signs of that age about her face. While  
elegantly beautiful, she didn't bear much resemblance to her  
daughter.

"Touga-san; a pleasure as always."

Her dead daughter, Utena thought, whom Akio might have  
killed like he killed Kozue, whom she hadn't feel any guilt at  
all towards for messing around with Akio behind her back.

"And who is this?"

No; she had felt guilt. But she'd done it anyway. Did  
feeling bad for doing something wrong make it somehow better than  
if you didn't feel bad at all?

"Tenjou Utena, a friend of mine from my student days at  
Ohtori. I'm escorting her around town while she's here. I  
thought she'd like to meet the chairman. How is he today?"

"As he always is," said the quiet voice of the room's second  
occupant, who hadn't yet risen from his chair and thereby allowed  
Utena to get a good look at him. "Neither medicine nor prayer  
seems to have done much for his recovery." She craned her neck a  
little to get a view around the obscuring back of the chair: dark  
clothes, grey hair, wide, powerful hands, and, most interesting  
of all, a white priest's collar.

Hoshimi smiled wanly, and glanced to the man in the chair.  
"As Taiyoji-san says, he is much as he always is. Weak, but  
lucid."

Ohtori Taiyoji rose from his chair. A big, powerful man in  
his fifties, he looked as though he'd be more suited as a  
stevedore than a priest. "Kiryuu-san, I am sorry I must depart  
so quickly, but I was in truth about to leave just as you  
arrived. I have a lunch appointment. I'm sure I will see you  
again before I return to Rome." He bowed to Utena. "Hopefully,  
you as well, miss."

Then he departed before anyone else even had a chance to say  
farewell. The three of them watched his rapidly-retreating back:  
Utena with confusion, Touga and Hoshimi with a kind of jaded  
acceptance.

"Still trying to sell you on his desire to return Ohtori to  
its roots as the most eminent centre for private Catholic  
education in Japan?" Touga asked in a low voice.

Hoshimi nodded. "It's his cause," she said sourly. "The  
school gave up its religious affiliations less than a decade  
after founding, but he doesn't care."

"I never knew it even had them," Utena said musingly. "You  
know, that explains a lot about the architecture."

Hoshimi turned to her and nodded again. "One of the  
architects was an Italian who designed cathedrals; Tsukiichi's  
grandfather, who endowed the academy, commissioned him to design  
a school based upon cathedral architecture, which obsessed him  
his entire life." She grimaced. "The library has about a  
thousand books on the subject, all very dusty, all very boring."  
She sighed. "Enough babble from me, though. You wanted to see  
him?"

Touga nodded. 

"I'll take you to him." She led them back to the front hall  
and up the stairs to the second floor, then down another hallway  
to a door at the end. Utena could faintly smell roses, and,  
underlying them, pungent attar.

"Try not to look surprised when you see him," Touga murmured  
to her, low enough that Hoshimi wouldn't hear. "His appearance  
is a little shocking when you first meet him."

The chairman's wife opened the door. The heady odour of  
roses and attar trebled, becoming almost sickly-sweet, to the  
point where Utena nearly gagged. Beyond, the room was full of  
muted winter sunlight streaming through translucent gauzy  
curtains drawn across the room's two big opposing windows. A  
half-dozen big arrangements of different breeds and colours of  
roses sprang up from transparent crystal vases placed at  
different places throughout the big room: on the bedside table,  
on the big oak desk, on the top of the single tall bookshelf.

Seated at the desk in an electric wheelchair, Ohtori  
Tsukiichi, the school's real chairman, looked up as they entered.  
Despite Touga's warning, Utena still wasn't sure she managed to  
keep shock off her face. Gaunt wasn't adequate; emaciated was  
better, but still not close enough.

Skeletal. He was skeletal, skin so tight over his bones  
that it was nearly translucent. She could see distinctly the  
shape of his skull. When he put down the gold-rimmed pen he was  
writing with and raised his hand in greeting, she found herself,  
to her disgust, thinking of how easy it would be to count his  
knucklebones.

"Touga-san, Hoshimi-chan... and someone I don't know." He  
smiled; Utena could see it was intended to be friendly, but, from  
him, it came out dreadfully macabre. "You'll have to forgive me,  
dear girl, I don't look my best." He patted the wisps of white  
hair clinging to his skull. "I was much better-looking before I  
started to go bald."

Touga and Hoshima laughed forcedly; Utena couldn't manage  
more than an uncomfortable smile.

The chairman reached down slowly with a feeble hand and  
manipulated the joystick of his wheelchair. It moved back from  
the desk with an electric whir, and turned to face them. "So,  
Touga, who is your attractive friend?"

"I'm Tenjou Utena, Chairman Ohtori." Utena bowed quickly.  
"I went to Ohtori Academy for junior high. Very pleased to meet  
you."

"But you didn't finish at Ohtori? I'm disappointed. Were  
there some problems with the quality of the education?" His  
quiet, whispery voice seemed genuinely concerned.

"Err..."

A high-pitched cat's meow saved her from having to answer,  
as a long-bodied Siamese emerged from the darkness under the bed.  
Hoshimi knelt down and the cat jumped into her arms with one  
smooth leap. "Trivia, my pet, how did you get in here?"

"Probably snuck in and fell asleep under the bed when I was  
brought my breakfast," the chairman said amicably, chuckling  
dryly. "Little scamp."

Touga leaned over and rubbed the cat's head. It purred, and  
its blue eyes narrowed with pleasure. "Such a beautiful animal."

"Isn't she? I'm going to take her downstairs. I'll be back  
shortly." Hoshimi opened the door and exited, leaving Touga and  
Utena alone with the chairman.

"So, Utena-chan, do you still live in Houou, or did you have  
to leave Ohtori because you moved away?"

"I live in Sapporo," Utena answered quickly. Utena-chan? A  
little too familiar, that. She let it go by--he was a sick old  
man. "I came back to visit some friends."

"Ahh. Sapporo's a lovely city. I haven't been there in  
years." The chairman slowly turned his head to look at. "Touga,  
tell me how things are at Ohtori. Anything new about that poor  
boy who died?"

"No, nothing new, but there's been some developments in the  
plans for the..." Touga launched into a long and technical  
discussion of Ohtori's current events with the chairman, which  
Utena tried at first to pay attention to on the off-chance it  
contained useful information. She soon found herself tuning out,  
though: looking around the room, trying to remember the names of  
the different varieties of roses, reading the spines of the  
chairman's books (most of them seemed to have "Education" or a  
synonym of that somewhere in the title, and looked fantastically  
dull). The cloying odour of roses and attar became more bearable  
as time passed, but not by much.

She first heard the voice inside her head during Touga's  
explanation of the new course schedule for Ohtori's French  
program.

help us

"What?" She started. "How interesting. French. Really.  
My friend Wakaba took French for a year, but she didn't really  
think much of it. Not to say it isn't a wonderful program, I'm  
sure, it was probably just that she wasn't a very dedicated  
student."

The chairman and Touga looked at her for a moment in  
silence.

"The French language _is_ fascinating, isn't it?" the  
chairman finally said cheerfully. "Go on, Touga."

help us

Who's help us that? she thought. I don't help under us  
stand. 

"Excuse me," she said. "I need to go to the washroom."

"Go to the end of the hall, turn left," the chairman  
directed. Utena hurried out of the room and closed the door  
behind her, then took deep breaths of air that wasn't sweet  
enough to choke on.

help us

The two words repeated themselves over and over in her head,  
sounding like her own thoughts, as she made her way to the  
bathroom. She ran water in the big marble sink and splashed her  
face.

help us

"Who are you?" she hissed. Was she hallucinating?

down

"What?"

dark

"I don't understand."

hungry

"Who--"

HELPDOWNUSDARKHELPHUNGRYUS!

She cried out and fell to her knees, clutching her head as  
a sudden intense migraine sent red-hot shrapnel throughout her  
skull.

tired

sleep

"Okay," Utena murmured, and proceeded to do so.

* * *

Snow was falling again, in little white pellets like a scattering  
of seeds from heaven--a strange snow, one whose flakes held up a  
little longer against the windshield's heat and the wiper-strokes  
than usual.

"Anthy... what's going on?" Saionji asked, glancing away  
from the road for a moment. The wind was blowing loose-packed  
powder off the top of the snowbanks lining the sidewalks, and  
pallid dust-devils danced and died upon the road's lanes and  
lines. "What happened to you?"

"I'm being hunted," Anthy murmured in reply. She'd tilted  
the passenger seat back almost forty-five degrees, and had her  
head turned away from Saionji to stare out the window. "Or I  
soon will be. I need somewhere safe to rest and regain my  
strength, and I need someone to guard me while I do that."

His pause was palpable. "And you chose me," he said  
finally. She was unable to tell if it was a declaration or a  
question.

"There was no one else," she said after a moment, turning to  
look at him. His hands were tight on the wheel, eyes focused  
intently on the road. She considered him critically: while still  
in very good shape (he was too vain not to be), it wasn't the  
fighter's shape of his Ohtori years. He was still a young man,  
but his shape was already becoming that of a businessman who  
worked out on the weekends. "When was the last time you used a  
sword, Saionji-san?"

"Kyouichi," he said quietly. "Please; can't you call me  
that?" He paused; his eyes were distant. "The last time I  
sparred would have been my last year of high school."

"That long ago?" Anthy said, surprised.

"After I lost touch with Touga, there really didn't seem to  
be any other worthy foes." The way he said Touga's name, as  
though drawing it out from some shadowy place... something more  
was there than a friendship drifting apart. "I still pick up a  
shinai or bokuto now and again, just to keep the muscles  
remembering what they're supposed to do... but I'm not the  
captain of the kendo club any longer..." His eyes went distant  
again. "I'm not a Duellist any longer."

Regret? Relief? She couldn't say. To live a life for  
seven years without remembering what had really gone on at  
Ohtori, and then have all of it come back at once... Wakaba had  
made the choice for both of them, of course, but had she been  
right to let Wakaba decide for Saionji like that? He'd gone far  
deeper into the shadows than his wife had. Wakaba had only  
brushed against the pitiless thorns of Mikage and Mamiya's  
(yes; think of "him" as Mamiya--it was easier that way) black  
roses, but Saionji had been nearly as tangled in Akio's web as  
Touga by the end.

"I need your help, Kyouichi," she said.

He nodded. "What do you want me to do?"

"For now, as I said, I need rest." She yawned  
involuntarily, but it served to punctuate her point. "My  
apartment isn't safe. I don't even dare go back there to get my  
clothes." Who knew how many men Leo had? They might not have  
all been there to die at the hands of... whoever it had been...

(when the prince came forth upon hearing his sister's cries  
and saw what their hands had done, all the love he had held  
for the people and their daughters fled his heart on black,  
beating wings)

"Anthy?"

She started. "Sorry; fell asleep for a moment."

"I could take you to my--our apartment. Wakaba's and mine."

"No," she said after a moment's thought. "That's not safe  
either. They might have tracked Utena that far before they lost  
her."

"Anthy, what exactly happened?" Concern and uncertainty  
pervaded his voice. "How did you..."

"Later," she murmured, closing her eyes and yawning again.  
"Short version: I was kidnapped, tortured, and escaped. I think  
most of those hunting me are dead or out of the picture, except  
the leader, but I can't be certain. I've got almost no strength  
left from healing my wounds and escaping--the only reason I'm  
still awake to talk to you..." She yawned yet again. "...is  
because I've eaten enough food for three in the last hour, and  
drank enough coffee for five. I'll tell you the long version  
later."

Saionji's pointed silence made it clear he wasn't satisfied  
with her explanation; she wasn't really able to tell without  
looking at his face, though, and opening her eyes was too much  
effort at the moment.

"I'll take you to a hotel," he said finally. "I'll have to  
call Wakaba and explain things to her. I left rather abruptly."

"Undoubtedly."

"How did you... reach me like that?"

"We were engaged, once. And you had--still have--strong  
feelings towards me." She realized vaguely that she might be  
saying more than she should in her exhausted state, but so tired  
was she that the realization didn't really help her to stop.  
"You were close, too; would have called Utena, but..." She  
trailed away; some things were not going to be said, no matter  
how tired she was.

"What are you going to do after you rest?"

"You know," she said slowly, "I haven't even thought of  
that."

* * *

Blue eyes, blue eyes that laughed and capered and burned cold  
along their edges, blue eyes that flared and danced and pierced  
like a spear, blue eyes that wheeled and turned and slashed like  
razors...

Utena woke up. Trivia the Siamese was sitting on her chest.

"Meow," she said.

"Hello," Utena replied woozily. The bathroom tiles were  
quite cold, and she could still hear water running in the sink.

The Siamese blinked at her, said "Meow" again, kneaded  
delicately at her naked throat with velvety paws behind which  
hooked claws lurked like veiled threats, and at last hopped off  
her to pad out the barely-open bathroom door.

She sat up slowly, one hand massaging her clammy forehead.  
How long had she been out for? It couldn't have been long, or  
they would have come looking for her. 

"What the hell _was_ that?" she whispered. Her whole body  
seemed to be assembled of poorly-connected segments like an  
ill-made marionette. After taking a few deep breaths while  
seated, she stood up with one hand on the edge of the sink for  
support. Reflected in the mirror, her face was pallid as though  
she'd just seen a ghost. She splashed her face again, then  
turned the water off and left the bathroom. Funny how that cat  
had gotten in, she thought as she walked down the hall--she was  
sure she'd closed the door tightly.

Of course, it didn't even approach the weirdness of having  
her own inner voice start screaming at her. As she made her way  
back to the Chairman's room, she tried to decide just what to do  
about it.

Down... dark... that seemed fairly simple. Help us? Who  
were "us"? And... hungry? That had been a little disturbing.  
All the others had just been words, but she'd felt that hunger in  
the marrow of her bones and the pit of her stomach.

Should she tell Touga? Maybe he'd experienced something  
similar before. But she still couldn't trust him... it might be  
better to keep this quiet until she was back at the hotel, and  
could talk to Juri and the others about it. Explaining just how  
she'd come to be at Ohtori Mansion might be difficult: Hey  
everyone, remember Touga? You know, Nanami's brother, the guy we  
don't trust at all? Well, through a series of bizarre  
coincidences, I ended up back at his luxury penthouse, where he  
made me a _really_ good margarita and showed me the sketches he'd  
made of me if I were a real prince. Then we went to visit the  
real chairman of Ohtori Academy, who was actually quite nice  
except for the fact that he looks like he should have been dead  
about five years ago, but, anyway, the important thing is that I  
heard a voice in my head yelling for help while I was there, so,  
what should we do about it?

She could just imagine the responses. And it hadn't even  
really been her fault; how was she to know that Touga would have  
predicted Nanami's return and gone around checking hotels?

But it wasn't as though she could just not tell them. Was  
it really a lie to leave out certain details, such as who you  
were with, or why you were with them?

Yes, she told herself firmly, yes it was.

She waited outside the door to the chairman's room for a  
moment, still thinking about what to do. Touga's voice was dimly  
audible through the thick door, with lengthy pauses that were  
likely the chairman speaking too quietly for her to hear.

"...very soon... yes, the preparations are all made... a  
very appropriate quartet, these four..."

Hand on the doorknob, Utena paused. Eavesdropping wasn't  
really polite, but... Oh, to hell with polite. 

"...yes, he's been planning this for a long time... should  
be quite an impressive event, if it all turns out how he  
envisions..."

She frowned, knowing that she was missing key words, key  
words that might put what Touga was saying into context, perhaps  
tell her just what his role really was... "these four"...  
"planning this for a long time"... it could be something entirely  
innocent, or--

"Tenjou-san?" 

Utena started at the voice, and looked back nervously at  
Ohtori Hoshimi. "I was just about to go in," she said quickly,  
defensively. She turned back to the door and knocked rapidly.  
"Just had to knock, you know; that's the polite thing to do."

"Of course," the older woman said dryly, giving Utena a look  
of vaguely suspicious confusion.

Touga opened the door. "Ahh, Utena, Hoshimi-san, welcome  
back. Your timing is very good." He smiled back at the invalid  
chairman. "I think I've just about told Tsukiichi-san enough  
information to satisfy him for this week."

Tsukiichi chuckled, a sound like a small animal moving  
through a wet pile of rotting leaves. "Just about. I like to  
feel like I'm still involved in the school." The chuckle  
dissolved into a hacking cough. Hoshimi moved worriedly by  
Utena, drawing forth a handkerchief from her blouse pocket and  
holding it to her husband's lips while supporting the back of his  
head with one hand.

"You should rest, Tsukiichi," she said soothingly, looking  
rather pointedly at Touga and Utena. "All this talk has excited  
you too much."

"Forgive me," Touga said softly, although he didn't really  
sound sorry to Utena. "I should have been more concise."

"Nonsense." Tsukiichi feebly waved his wife away. Utena  
could see red flecks staining the handkerchief. "I enjoy your  
visits nearly as much as I enjoy Akio-san's."

Akio-san? Utena suppressed a frown. Even without an  
engagement to Kanae, Akio obviously still had the real chairman  
under his thumb.

"And it was such a pleasure to meet you, Utena-kun," the  
chairman continued. "If you're going to be in town long, I hope  
you come to visit me again." He smiled at her, and, again, Utena  
had to remind herself that he was trying to be friendly, not  
frightening.

"Thank you, Ohtori-san," she replied. "I'd like that. It  
was so nice to meet you."

"I'm going to get Tsukiichi into bed," Hoshimi said, again  
giving them a pointed glance. "If you two could see yourselves  
out... thank you for coming, Touga-san... it was very pleasant to  
meet you, Utena-san..."

Touga bowed slightly, made his farewells, and left with  
Utena. Once out in the main hallway and out of earshot of the  
chairman's room, she turned to him. "She seemed to want us out  
of their pretty quick, didn't she?"

"She's concerned for her husband's health," Touga replied,  
almost defensively. "Any sign that his condition may be  
worsening tends to make her a little abrupt."

"I guess that's understandable," Utena agreed. She sighed.  
"Poor woman. It must be hard for her."

"Yes." Touga nodded. They started down the curving stairs  
leading to the main floor. Halfway to the bottom, he glanced at  
his watch. "Listen, it's nearly noon... do you want to--"

"It is?" Utena looked at her own watch. "Oh, boy. I  
really have to get back to the hotel." Juri was going to call  
her around noon in order to report on what they'd found out so  
far. "Got someone I need to meet."

"Oh." Touga looked disappointed. "Perhaps another day,  
then. How long are you in town?"

"Oh, at least a few days longer," she said. "I'm not really  
sure, yet. Listen, what's your number?"

"Well, it's more traditional for the man to ask," he joked.  
"But here's my card. It has my home number, my office  
number--not that I'm there much, I usually work from home--and my  
cell-phone."

She slipped the card into her purse. "Thanks." Don't ask  
me for mine, she pleaded silently. If she gave him her room  
number, he'd know she was staying with Nanami, and then the whole  
carefully-constructed web of lies would fall apart. So, if he  
asked, the only choice would be to add another lie, and she  
_hated_ lying. Or to come up with some excuse as to why she  
couldn't give it to him, which would be a kind of lie as well,  
because she _would_ have given it to him, it was just that--

"Utena-san, are you all right?" They were at the front  
doors now, and he was taking their coats from the closet.

"Oh, fine. Just spaced out for a moment." She knelt and  
slipped on her boots. 

As they crossed the hollow-seeming grounds, walking beneath  
barren trees and past dirty grey piles of snow, Touga lightly  
touched her elbow. "Thank you for coming," he said softly. "I  
think seeing someone new did him good. That's the best I've seen  
him in months."

"Oh?" She didn't want to imagine what he must be like on  
bad days, then.

"There was some expectation after Kanae died that he'd take  
the academy out of Akio's hands, perhaps give it over to another  
board member. Not Taiyoji, of course, but someone more qualified  
than Akio." He moved his hand away from her elbow, dug his keys  
out of the pocket, and unlocked the minivan with the remote as  
they approached. "The problem is, Akio's done an incredibly good  
job. Ohtori's international reputation and standing are the best  
they've been in years. A meeting of the Board of Trustees is  
scheduled next week to discuss the results of a five-year review,  
and I expect no one except Ohtori Taiyoji will raise any  
complaints against Akio."

"What kind of complaints?"

Touga shrugged as he opened the passenger-side door for her.  
"His usual ones. Ohtori has moved too far away from it's  
original roots. The ties that existed with the Church in the first  
decade after Ohtori's founding should be re-established. That  
sort of thing. Oh, and he despises Akio personally."

"Can't be all bad, then."

"No," Touga said as he got into the driver's seat. "He's a  
good man; he's involved in a lot of humanitarian work abroad.  
Ohtori Academy is just a sore point for him. As is Akio."

They drove to the gate, and Touga stopped the car to allow  
the guard to open it. Utena waved a thank-you to the guard as  
they left the grounds.

On the way back to the hotel, Utena remained mostly silent,  
letting Touga talk of inconsequential things related to Ohtori,  
none of which caught her attention as important.

Eventually, they pulled into the pick-up and drop-off area  
of the hotel. It was shortly after noon, and Utena hoped that  
Juri hadn't called yet.

"Give me a call later," Touga said quietly. "We've got a  
lot more we need to talk about."

As she turned towards him to unbuckle her seatbelt, he  
leaned over and kissed her lightly on the lips. Still something  
of a playboy after all, she thought, but she wasn't really  
surprised, and she didn't pull away.

He was an awfully good kisser. He would be, of course;  
plenty of experience. There was a sweetness to it, the kind of  
humility that had been in his awkward declarations on that last  
innocent night--but at the same time, there was the promise of  
more to come, if she so desired.

Damn it, Tenjou, she thought vaguely, as the kiss went on,  
as he brought one hand up to run it down her hair and cup lightly  
the back of her neck. What is it with you and dangerous men?

If he tried to give her anything more than his lips, she was  
pulling away. He didn't. Pressed them against hers a little  
more intensely, perhaps, but she found herself pressing back.

There hadn't been anyone else since Akio. 

His hand gently stroked the nape of her neck, tangled a lock  
of hair round his fingers. Their positioning had him almost  
leaning over her, and his hair softly brushed her face in a  
feather-light caress. Utena felt flushed and hot, and needed to  
breathe; she placed her hand flat against Touga's chest (still  
hard and muscular--she could feel that even through his jacket  
and shirt) and eased him slowly out of the kiss.

"I'll call you," she half-gasped, quickly opening the door  
and stepping out onto the sidewalk before the hotel. "Bye,  
Touga."

"Goodbye, Tenjou Utena." The slow way he said her name, as  
though reluctant to let it escape from him too quickly, sent a  
chilly but undeniably pleasurable tingle down her spine.

She closed the door behind her without looking back at him  
and hurried into the hotel. Had there been anyone around to see  
that? Thankfully, the windows of the van were tinted on the  
outside.

The first thing she did upon getting back into the room was  
check on Chu-Chu, relying upon the room's natural light to see.  
He was still asleep where she'd left him, but when she gently  
spoke his name and prodded him with her finger, he opened his  
eyes to look at her.

"Chu," he said wearily. 

"Feeling better?" she asked.

"Chu," he agreed, nodding his head and letting out an  
enormous yawn before falling back to sleep. Utena felt immensely  
relieved--it had probably just been a little flu bug or a cold or  
something. Chu-Chu got those from time to time.

"Sleep well, little friend," she murmured affectionately,  
rearranging his small blanket. It occurred to her that if Juri  
had already called and missed her, she might have left a message  
with the desk. She walked to the table between the beds and  
turned on the lamp.

On her bed and Nanami's, unobtrusively laid on their  
pillows, small white envelopes were placed. Unaddressed and  
unsigned, except for Ohtori's rose crest.

* * *

By the time they checked into the hotel, Anthy was almost asleep  
on her feet, and had no real choice but to lean on Kyouichi for  
support--that, or pass out. She tried to be delicate about it--  
her arm through his, her head against his shoulder occasionally  
when she felt especially weary--but it was impossible not to  
notice how he stiffened and shivered at her touch, as though she  
were ice or fire to him.

What a power she had over him still, she thought vaguely,  
with an almost perverse pleasure.

As they made their way down the green-painted hallway to the  
room, she glanced up at his face: stoic and neutral, he avoided  
looking at her. She could almost feel the shame radiating from  
him at his response to her physical presence.

He is not entirely who he was at Ohtori, she reminded  
herself. But she could not forget the finger-shaped bruises on  
Wakaba's arm, or the look in his eyes in the park. If he was not  
entirely who he had been at Ohtori, he was not an entirely  
different man, either.

The thought occurred to her that she might not be entirely  
safe with him under these circumstances: alone, isolated, weak,  
needing him to stand guard over her while she slept. But, as she  
had said, there was no one else.

She thought suddenly of Wakaba, sitting alone in her  
hospital bed, and felt a guilty pang. Wakaba would be wondering  
where her husband was (he said he'd left abruptly--what kind of  
explanation had he given?), if he was safe, perhaps even if he'd  
be coming back. Had she the strength, she would have reached out  
and told her pleasant things: that no harm would come to him,  
that he would be safe, that she wanted a guardian, not a lover  
(for how could Wakaba avoid thinking of that, now that she  
remembered about the leaf and the black roses?). 

"Anthy?"

"Hrm?" She stirred from her thoughts, rubbed sleepily at  
her eyes with a limp fist.

"I need to get the key out. Can you let go of my arm?"

"Mmm." The wall provided the necessary support now; she  
leaned against the cool, scalloped, green-painted plaster and let  
out a brief yawn. Inside the room, she imagined there would be a  
bed, with a soft mattress and fluffy pillows and gentle sheets to  
pull over her body so that she could sink down from this waking  
precipice into the bottomless pelagic gulf of sleep...

Keys rattled, hinges creaked; the door was open, and  
Kyouichi was leading her inside, into a dim room pale with  
sunlight, a small room with only one bed and a little TV by the  
chair in the corner, a tiny balcony beyond the sliding glass  
doors whose curtains were drawn open... he was helping her off  
with winter's clothing, gently and judiciously, touching her body  
no more than he had to... he knows, she thought vaguely, knows  
how weak I am...

"Do you need to use the washroom?" he asked, softly, kindly.  
It reminded her of a father talking to his daughter, and, how  
long had it been since she'd had even reminiscence of that? She  
shook her head, murmured a word or two that she forgot even as  
she spoke them.

The bedsprings creaked. She sat on the bed now, and he was  
drawing back the covers and the sheets, gently easing her down  
beneath them and tucking them in over her. He adjusted the  
pillows beneath her head so that she was more comfortable.

"My clothes," she murmured.

"W-what?" She could almost see the look on his face; it  
almost made her smile. "Anthy, I can't--"

"No. Not that." Such an effort to even remember the right  
words, as though she'd forgotten her entire vocabulary. "What  
I'm wearing right now, the blouse, the skirt... they only exist  
because I'm concentrating on them. As soon as I fall asleep for  
more than a few minutes, they'll disappear, so don't be  
surprised--and don't pull back the sheet to check on me, if you  
know what's good for you." So many words drained her of what  
little strength she had left; she could not have spoken more even  
if she'd wanted to. 

"Sleep well, Himemiya Anthy." That same rare tenderness, as  
though her name were a precious thing, a jewel for him to protect  
against all who would take it... "I will guard your rest."

Thank you, she thought, and tried to say it, but she was too  
weary. She faintly heard his footsteps moving away, water  
running in the bathroom, the rattle of pills in a bottle, the  
sound of swallowing. Her eyes were closed, and the darkness  
seemed to hum all around her like a swarm of black bees. For a  
short minute, she was at that point where exhaustion of mind and  
body were so great that sleep was impossible, and then it took  
her all the same.

Dreams came, nightmares, and she had no strength to send  
them away. Dios wept with hate and grief, and his silver sword  
split Leo's head down the middle like a rotten fruit. Faces slid  
and ran like melted wax: Dios became Utena became Saionji became  
Leo became Akio, slayer and slain wore the same masks. There  
were violins screaming dark music to the accompaniment of a  
deranged piano and an off-key harp, and shadows waltzing with  
skeletons in awkward wallflower steps. Dogs howled and cats  
screamed in a bestial choir, accompanying a newborn's enraged  
solo.

Then the dreams went away as she fell deeper still, aware of  
the darkness (always aware of the darkness), but without reason  
to be afraid of it. Her body healed itself, took back strength  
as she floated like a barque upon black-slumbering seas.

At times, she would drift into wakefulness, then quickly  
fall back. Once, Kyouichi was sitting in the chair, watching  
television with a disconsolate expression on his face. Another  
time, he was talking on the telephone:

"Yes, she's all right." Pause. "I don't know. She doesn't  
seem to be hurt, just very tired." Pause. "Yes, she said she  
was tortured, but I don't see any--no... I didn't think of that."  
Pause. "How can I ask her that? It's not the kind of thing you  
can ask someone; especially not the kind of thing I could ask  
her." Pause. "She said they were all dead, I think. Except the  
leader. No, I don't know how." Pause. Long. "Yes. I think  
she's got enough power to do that, more than that... but... yes,  
I'll be careful." Pause. "Yes, I took them, I'm better at  
remembering now." Pause. "No, I'm not sure when I'll be back.  
Soon, I hope." Pause. "I love you too. Goodbye."

Sleep again, for a long time, thankfully without further  
dreams. She woke up to moonlight and starlight, water running in  
the bathroom, pills rattling in a bottle. The red-eyed digital  
clock beside the bed told her it was just after eleven. She'd  
slept over ten hours.

She sat up and stretched her arms high, yawning throatily.  
The sheet slipped down her body, and she pulled it back up in  
time to cover her chest as Saionji came out of the bathroom with  
a glass of water in one hand and something clutched in the fist  
of the other.

He sat down in the chair in the corner, swallowed whatever  
was in his clenched fist, then drank the water, all without even  
seeming to acknowledge her presence. Then he turned his head and  
looked at her. "Feeling better?"

Anthy nodded. "You know, I just can't get used to you with  
short hair."

He chuckled softly. "I told you, I got tired of it hanging  
in my eyes."

"How often do you have to take those?"

He started and looked away from her, apparently ashamed.  
"Three times a day," he murmured. She could barely hear him.  
"They're not supposed to make me sleepy or lethargic, but I think  
they do. I always feel... dull, for at least an hour afterwards.  
But they help, they really do. In high school, it was like I  
lived on the edge of a sword; I was always incredibly confident  
or suicidally depressed or insanely angry or madly jealous...  
sometimes all those at once... after I was diagnosed, so much of  
how I felt made sense. These help keep me balanced."

She looked at him quietly. "Do you ever miss it?"

"Of course," he admitted after a moment. "Everyone thinks  
they're invincible when they're a teenager but I... I really felt  
like I was, so much of the time... especially when I was Duelling.  
Remembering that, things make even more sense."

He shifted in the chair uncomfortably, as though it were  
slightly too large or too small for him, and finally turned his  
gaze back towards her. "I never really said I was sorry. Having  
all those memories come back at once... I'm sorry, Anthy. For  
how I treated you then, and before. At Ohtori." He breathed in  
deeply, and said, "I'm a different person now."

"Yes, you are," she said quietly. Or at least, she added  
silently, you are trying to be, and that, too, is a worthy thing.  
"To be fair, what you thought was at least half-true. I was just  
a doll when I was the Rose Bride. A marionette, really."

"What happened, then?" he asked softly. "You're very  
different now."

She smiled wryly. "Utena cut my strings. Or perhaps she  
just showed me that I could cut them myself, or that there had  
never really been any strings at all." She paused. "You know,  
I'm incredibly hungry." Holding the sheet in front of her chest  
with one hand, she ran the other through her tangled and dirty  
hair. "And I need a shower. Badly."

"And some clothing," Kyouichi noted dryly.

"Easily fixed." She swung her legs out onto the bedside  
floor away from him and stood up, draped in the white sheet of  
the bed. If he averted his eyes, that was his choice, but she  
did not really care one way or the other. A quick twist and a  
minor expenditure of power, and the sheet was a functional (even,  
perhaps, fashionable in an elegantly understated way) dress.  
"It's not exactly winter wear, but, as long as I'm well-rested, I  
don't really feel cold."

Kyouichi slumped in the chair wearily. "What are you,  
Anthy?" he asked softly.

"A witch," she stated. "I'm a witch."

"Oh."

"Could you call room service and order something while I  
shower, please?" Without waiting to hear his response, she  
walked into the bathroom. Twenty minutes later, she walked out  
again, having attended to showering and other necessities. There  
was a tray with sandwiches and a coffee urn at the bedside table  
now. Kyouichi had pulled his chair up beside it.

"I waited for you before starting," he said. 

"You shouldn't have," Anthy said. He was looking at the  
food with the same hunger she felt. "Go on, you don't have to  
wait for me to take the first bite."

He grabbed a sandwich eagerly, poured himself coffee. She  
sat down on the bed across from him and did the same.

"So what are you going to do now?" he asked between bites.

"I'm going to go help Utena," she said, contentedly sipping  
strong black coffee. "That's something I need to talk to you  
about, actually."

"What for?" he asked, in a tone of voice that made it quite  
clear he already had a good idea.

"I need help." She dabbed a spot of coffee at the side of  
her mouth with a napkin. "I thought... I thought that Akio would  
stay in his coffin, playing fairy-tale prince... but it seems  
he's breaking out."

"If the chick does not break its shell," Saionji said,  
somewhat wistfully, "then it must die without being born."

"And even if the chick does not, in the end, break its  
shell, what ruinous cracks shall its desperate fight to escape  
leave behind?"

He looked thoughtful, as much as someone with mayo from a  
chicken sandwich on his chin could look thoughtful. "I never  
heard it ended like that before."

"I don't think any of us ever considered that it could end  
like that."

"So you want me to come with you, then?"

She nodded, said nothing.

Kyouichi leaned back in his chair, finished the last of his  
sandwich, and wiped the mayo from his chin. "Two things, then."

"Yes?"

"I want to know. I want to understand. About what Akio is,  
about what you are... about what it was all about, really. Near  
the end, before the duel called Revolution, I did what I did to  
help Touga, not because I really understood what was going on.  
You can explain it to me, yes?"

She could. Or give him enough half-truths to satisfy him  
without revealing things that were too personal, too painful. "I  
can do that, yes."

"Secondly, I'll only go if Wakaba will allow it."

"Agreed."

"You're surprised at that?" he asked softly, observing her  
narrowly. "Wakaba is the most precious thing I have. No one  
means more to me--no one."

She was pleased to hear it, actually. "I believe you. Do  
you think she will allow it?" 

"I think she will," he said, distantly. He was looking past  
her shoulder, out the window at the night. "Her heart is deep as  
the ocean; sometimes, she seems like an angel to me." He shook  
his head. "Forgive me; I'm waxing poetic again. When will we  
leave for Ohtori, if Wakaba will let me go?"

"We're not going to Ohtori," she corrected. Seeing his  
surprise, she added. "At least, not at first. Utena's there  
now, but if I'm going to help her against Akio, I'm going to need  
something first."

"So where will we be going, then?"

"Northeast," she said. "To Mount Daisetsu." She paused.  
"I hope it's still there..."

"You hope what's still there?"

"I'll explain along the way. If you come, that is." She  
looked over her shoulder at the night beyond the window. "If you  
don't come, the less you know the better."

Kyouichi sighed. "Mysteries," he murmured unhappily. He  
brought his hand up to cover his yawn. "Always the mysteries..."

"If you want to sleep, take the bed for a few hours," she  
said. "I think you should ask Wakaba in person, once morning  
comes, and I'll want to leave as soon as possible once I find  
out her answer."

"But don't you need to sleep as well?"

She did, at that. The rest had given her her strength back,  
but she needed regular sleep as well. Uncomfortably, she looked  
at the bed. A queen-size. Big enough for two. Perhaps it was  
best not to tempt fate. Or Kyouichi, for that matter. "I can  
take the floor. I've slept in worse places."

"Absolutely not," Kyouichi said, shaking his head. "I've  
slept in worse places too. Some nights, when we were younger,  
Touga and I would fall asleep on the dojo floor after  
practicing..." He trailed away, looking down at his hands as  
though they carried some invisible taint. "I'll take the floor.  
Please."

"All right." No reason to argue with him over something  
this trivial. And the bed was very comfortable.

* * *

Saionji Wakaba watched warily as her husband entered her hospital  
room. He walked like a man carrying a heavy burden upon his  
back, shoulders bent, head half-bowed. It had been nearly a full  
day since he'd abruptly stopped in the middle of talking to her,  
said, "Himemiya Anthy needs my help" in a voice cold and clear as  
an ice crystal, and left without another word.

She wondered what the nurses and the doctor (a very nice  
doctor, but she couldn't remember his name--he said she'd be out  
in another day or two. She felt fine, of course, just a little  
tired, but they said it didn't hurt to be cautious--she had been  
shot, after all. It was really rather exciting) thought about a  
woman whose husband stayed away from the hospital for nearly a  
day. They probably whispered all kinds of terrible gossip behind  
her back; hospitals were undoubtedly rife with that kind of  
thing.

"Wakaba-chan." He leaned down, took her hand, kissed her on  
the forehead. "How do you feel?"

"Sleepy," she murmured. "Did you take your morning pill?"

He nodded, trying to hide his annoyance. "Yes."

"I'm sorry--I shouldn't nag you so much."

His face softened. He sat down in the chair beside the bed,  
still holding her hand. "No. You should nag me." His other  
hand gently stroked her hair. "I--"

She cut him off. "I know what you've come to say." Had  
known since he'd called her yesterday, knew what her decision  
was, but couldn't keep the hurt from her voice. "You're going  
away with Himemiya Anthy, back to Ohtori, and you're sorry about  
it, but you don't really have any other choice. But--"

"But?" he prompted softly, one finger playfully and  
familiarly tangling the single recalcitrant curl of hair over her  
forehead that never would stay down properly.

"Who's going to pick up my mother at the airport tomorrow?"

He paused. His eyes were tired. Wakaba could see a  
stiffness about him, as though he hadn't slept well. "I actually  
didn't come to tell you I'm leaving," he said after a moment. "I  
came to ask your permission to go."

"Why would you need that?"

His hand tightened around hers, almost painfully. "Because  
you're my wife," he said fiercely. "I'm not just going to run  
off and leave you alone, especially when you're wounded like  
this... God only knows what your mother's going to think if I'm  
not here." Uncertainty showed on his face now. "Perhaps..."

"Mom adores you," she said reassuringly. She saw him  
flinch; his own memories of his mother were so bitter, so  
painful. "Almost as much as I do. I'll make up something, I  
don't know what, but I will. Or maybe I could even tell her the  
truth, and she'll understand then..."

"But do you know what the truth is?" he asked quietly,  
perhaps even hopefully. "I don't."

She put her other hand on his, until she clasped his larger  
hand between both of hers. "I don't suppose I do know what the  
truth of it is," she mused. "I probably know less than almost  
anyone, than you or Utena or Himemiya Anthy. But I remember now  
that you were taken from me once, and someone stabbed a black  
rose into my heart that hurt so badly I tried to kill my best  
friend in the entire world. And I don't want that to go  
unpunished."

Kyouichi hesitated before he spoke. She'd known him long  
enough to see the signs: his lips parted slightly as though  
frozen between silence and speech, and an almost imperceptible  
tightening came upon his face.

"The chairman," he said eventually. "Ohtori Akio. Anthy's  
brother. He was the one behind everything. Tenjou Utena went to  
fight him, to gather others to help her... to put an end to  
this."

"Ohtori Akio?" She shuddered, and knew that the next time  
she closed her eyes, she would see that darkly handsome face  
before her. "I went for a car ride with him once."

Kyouichi suddenly wrenched his hand from hers and shot up  
from his chair, looming over her where she lay in bed. "What?"  
he hissed. "You did... when? Did he touch you?"

"Kyouichi--"

He seized her shoulders hard enough to make her cry out, but  
she swallowed the sound before it could break free. His eyes  
were wild, frightening. "Did he touch you? Yes or no?"

"No," she whispered. "No; we just went for a drive by the  
ocean. It was nice. He didn't touch me. Not even a little  
kiss." She'd been rather disappointed by that at the time. Not  
now.

He sagged with relief and released her shoulders. "I... I'm  
sorry," he murmured, unable to meet her gaze. He turned to the  
bedside table and began to rearrange the flowers Himemiya Anthy  
had brought in their vase. "I'm sorry, Wakaba-chan, I got angry  
again. Not at you; never at you." 

"I know," she replied softly. "Sit down. Come here. It's  
all right." He sat again, and she drew his head down against her  
breast while running her fingers through his short, wavy hair.  
"Kyouichi-chan, my precious one. You're the most important thing  
in the world to me. Go with Himemiya Anthy. Help her, help  
Utena." She paused; the fear that she was going to start crying  
came upon her. "Just come back to me."

"I'll come back," he promised. "I swear I will." He  
sighed and pulled his chair closer, head still pillowed against  
her breast. "I can hear your heart beat," he whispered, speaking  
as though from within a dream. "Right after you were shot, just  
for a moment, when I thought you might be gone, I knew I couldn't  
go on without you. You're the only thing I have to keep me here  
most days. I don't deserve you, and yet--"

"You do deserve me," she murmured, laying her hand against  
his cool cheek. "You deserve to be happy, Kyouichi-chan."

He sighed gently. "Some days, I don't know if I do."

"Well, I know you do," she said teasingly. "And I'm going  
to make sure you are, whether you like it or not."

The gentle force of his laughter carried through his body  
and into hers. He raised his head from her breast and kissed her  
on the lips. "I'm sorry I don't have more time to give you a  
better farewell, love." His eyes sparkled boyishly, a look she  
adored in him for its rarity as much as for how handsome it made  
him look.

She slapped him lightly on the shoulder. "Pervert; this is  
a public hospital. Besides, I'm still technically an invalid.  
When you get back, though..."

Neither of them spoke the also-possible "if" out loud, but  
their eyes said it as well as anything. Kyouichi leaned down and  
kissed her again, longer, harder. 

"Give my love to your mother," he said, straightening again  
and walking towards the door. "Tell her whatever you think is  
best. Even the truth." He smiled a little wryly. "What's  
painful festers in the dark, dies in the light. Goodbye, Wakaba-  
chan."

"Goodbye," she said, "Kyouichi-chan." My precious one, she  
added again, silently, as he closed the door and left her. 

For over an hour, she read her book, a shamelessly romantic,  
childishly idealistic and incredibly entertaining romance novel.  
A dour nurse came in, changed her bandages, and gave her a shot;  
they talked briefly about the latest developments on a soap they  
both followed, and the nurse left smiling. 

The shot made her sleepy, and she drifted off before lunch  
was served. The rattle of wheels on the lunch cart half-woke  
her, and she drowsily listened to two nurses talking in the hall  
outside for a few moments before falling asleep again.

"Yes, it's one of the strangest things I've ever seen.  
Whoever dropped him off left a briefcase full of money and note:  
'Care for him, and whatever more you spend, when I come again, I  
shall repay you.'"

"They say he's a very handsome young man. Foreign, too.  
Smoke inhalation and a concussion. I wonder what happened? The  
head of the hospital called the police, of course..."

When she awoke again, it was nearing sunset. Crimson seeped  
in through the window, painting everything in the room. Wakaba  
yawned and stretched, then picked up her book again and absorbed  
herself pleasurably in the tale of forbidden love between a  
samurai and a maidservant. Just as the samurai was about to  
fight a duel over an insult to his lover's honour, the door  
opened for what she assumed was her dinner.

"Just leave it by the bed; I'll eat it later. I'm at a  
really good part."

"Ahh, pardon me, madam--I have the wrong room. But, no, the  
front desk said... let me check the number again." 

Wakaba put down the book, marking her place with her finger.  
An old, tall, rather good-looking (for someone who had to be at  
least sixty) man was in the room, awkwardly fumbling a pair of  
wire-rimmed spectacles from their leather case onto his nose in  
order to read whatever was written on a scrap of paper. Not  
Japanese; she thought from his dark complexion that he was  
probably Italian or Spanish, maybe Greek. Not that she had any  
real idea, but with his thick white hair and lanky body, he  
reminded her of an illustration of Don Quixote she'd seen once,  
although she couldn't remember if Don Quixote was Spanish or  
Italian. 

"Ahh, pardon me again, madam, I've dropped the paper with  
the number on it... I will go out into the hall to check it as  
soon as I retrieve it... once again, I beg your pardon, this is  
so highly inappropriate, but you see, I am looking for a friend  
of mine, and I am certain they told me this was his room... there  
must have been some sort of mix-up."

"It's all right," she said, smiling at him. So polite, and  
such a charming accent--she thought it was Spanish. Yes, he was  
definitely Spanish. He reminded her of a retired Zorro; she  
could see him fighting for fair maidens when he was younger.  
"I'm Saionji Wakaba."

"Leo Cano," he said, rising up with the paper in his hand.  
"Or Cano Leo, I should say; that's the proper form in your  
language, yes?" He smiled ruefully. "I'm afraid my grasp of it  
is not very good."

"It's very good," she said. "Well, I hope you find your  
friend."

He adjusted his spectacles and looked down at the paper.  
"Ahh, I see--silly old man that I am. I should be a floor  
above... or a floor below... what floor is this, again?"

She told him. He clucked his lips in self-derision. "The  
floor below, then. Thank you so much for your help, madam." He  
bowed to her and headed to the door, then paused. "Pardon yet  
again madam, but I cannot help but wonder... whatever illness you  
have, it is not serious, is it? I am sorry to ask so personal a  
question, but the idea of a lovely young woman such as yourself  
being seriously ill... I do not like to think of it."

Wakaba laughed. "Oh, I'm not ill; I just got shot."

"Shot?" His hand flew to his chest and his eyes widened  
with shock. "Madam, you say it as though it is not a serious  
thing."

"It wasn't, really," she said, blushing. "Just a flesh  
wound."

"Madre Dios," Leo Cano murmured. "I am sorry to hear that."  
He paused, seeming torn between his desire not to intrude any  
further and his concern. "Madam, are you married?"

"Yes, I am." She held up her hand to display her ring, a  
thin gold band.

"Ahh. And your husband... he has only stepped out for a  
moment, then. I should go before he returns, or he may jump to  
hasty conclusions... madam, what's wrong?" He stepped towards  
her hesitantly. "You are crying; I am sorry. I have said  
something to upset you."

Wakaba shook her head and dabbed at her eyes with a tissue  
from the box beside the bed. "No, no..." she murmured. "It's  
just that he hasn't stepped out for a moment. I don't know when  
he's going to visit me again."

The old man frowned. "Such an action is not worthy of a  
man, especially one married to someone so beautiful."

"You're very kind." She sniffled, blew her nose on the  
tissue, and dropped it into the wastebasket beside the bed.  
"But, please, don't think badly of Kyouichi--my husband--because  
of what I said. I hate to think of anyone, even a stranger,  
although I suppose you're not a stranger, since we know each  
other's names... well, I just don't want anyone to think badly of  
him. He had something really important to do."

The frown had not left his face. "And what would be more  
important than being at his wife's side in her time of need?"

"His high school reunion," she said without thinking. 

"High... school... reunion?" Leo asked dubiously.

"Yes--but it's really very important." She paused, brain  
working frantically. "In Japan, we take high school reunions  
_very_ seriously. They're an important part of our culture."

"I see. And... what high school did your husband go to?"

"Ohtori Academy. In Houou. I went there too, but, well...  
obvious circumstances prevent me from attending." Along with the  
fact that I'd just be in their way, she added silently.

"Ahh. Well, I hope he enjoys himself, and returns to you  
soon. Now, I really must go and see my friend..."

"What happened to your friend?"

Leo looked sadly at the floor, looking suddenly ten years  
older. "He became ill very suddenly yesterday; I thought I could  
care for him myself, without having to bring him to the  
hospital... by the time I realized how serious his illness was,  
his condition had become much worse... I feel very guilty."

"You shouldn't," Wakaba soothed. "It isn't your fault."

"No," he murmured, so softly she wasn't sure she heard him  
correctly. "Not mine entirely."

She propped herself up on her elbows and looked at him.  
"Cano-san?"

"Yes, madam?" He raised his head to look back at her.

"Could you--I mean, if you don't mind, do you think you  
could come and visit me again? I... well, I like talking to you.  
I don't know." She blushed, and stammered the next words.  
"You're very charming."

He smiled a bit sadly, and walked over to stand beside her  
bed. "Another personal question, madam," he said. "Are you a  
Christian?"

She shook her head. "No; I'm not. My aunt's Catholic; I  
used to stay with her for the winter holidays, sometimes, and  
she'd take me to midnight mass. I really liked going, because  
the music was always so beautiful, but I didn't really understand  
any of it. Still don't, really."

"Ahh." His smile faded a little, and she felt somewhat  
sorry to have disappointed him, even though it wasn't something  
she could help. She wasn't going to lie about something as  
important as her religion, after all. "God bless and keep you  
all the same, child." To her surprise, he leaned down and  
kissed her on the forehead. "God bless and keep you all the  
same, and may every path you must walk never be in darkness."

"That's a nice cologne you're wearing," she said, as he  
straightened. "Reminds me of..." She paused. "Faded roses, I  
think."

"Faded roses," he murmured. "I hope I will be able to visit  
you again, madam; I would like that."

"So would I."

"Goodbye, madam."

"Goodbye, Cano-san."

What a nice old man, she thought after he had left. A  
little strange, but nice. And she opened up her book again to  
see if the love story's ending would be a happy one, or a sad  
one.

* * *

Maybe I'm still hurting,  
I can't turn the other cheek  
But you know that I still love you;  
It's just that I can't speak.  
I looked for you in everyone  
And they called me on that too;  
I lived alone but I was only  
Coming back to you.  
\--Leonard Cohen, "Coming Back to You"

End of Jaquemart - Part IV


End file.
